Hands-On LabBuilding the Right Software: Generating Storyboards and Collecting Stakeholder Feedback with Visual Studio 2013Lab version: 12.0.30723.00 Update 3

Last updated: 9/10/2014

CONTENTS

OVERVIEW................................................................................................................................................. 3

EXERCISE 1: INTRODUCTION TO STORYBOARDING...........................................................................4

EXERCISE 2: ELICITING FEEDBACK WITH THE MICROSOFT FEEDBACK CLIENT.........................26

Overview

How often have you built the software that your users asked for, but not necessarily what they wanted? In a world of increasingly complex software projects, it is critical that we can accurately capture requirements from users, which can then be translated into working software. In this lab, you’ll learn how the capabilities of Visual Studio 2013 make it possible to both rapidly storyboard your requirements, and – as your software evolves – get rich, actionable feedback from users of your software which can help shape what you deliver.

Prerequisites

In order to complete this lab you will need the Visual Studio 2013 virtual machine provided by Microsoft. For more information on acquiring and using this virtual machine, please see this blog post.

About the Fabrikam Fiber Scenario

This set of hands-on-labs uses a fictional company, Fabrikam Fiber, as a backdrop to the scenarios you are learning about. Fabrikam Fiber provides cable television and related services to the United States. They are growing rapidly and have embraced Windows Azure to scale their customer-facing web site directly to end-users to allow them to self-service tickets and track technicians. They also use an on-premises ASP.NET MVC application for their customer service representatives to administer customer orders.

In this set of hands-on labs, you will take part in a number of scenarios that involve the development and testing team at Fabrikam Fiber. The team, which consists of 8-10 people, has decided to use Visual Studio application lifecycle management tools to manage their source code, run their builds, test their web sites, and plan and track the project.

Change log

For Update 3:

Screenshot updates as necessary, other minor edits

Exercises

This hands-on lab includes the following exercises:

1. Introduction to Storyboarding

2. Eliciting Feedback with the Microsoft Feedback Client

Estimated time to complete this lab: 60 minutes.

Exercise 1: Introduction to Storyboarding

In this exercise, you will learn how to use the PowerPoint storyboarding add-in to create application storyboards. This will be accomplished by examining an existing storyboard file and by adding in some additional storyboard slides to address an additional user story.

Note: Please note that in the virtual machine you may notice delays when attempting to open the team project portal while the necessary SharePoint services are started for the first time, and you may notice timeouts or unexpected errors.

In most cases, you can keep refreshing the page until it loads. Note that it may take a few minutes depending on the performance of the hardware you are hosting this virtual machine on. If after a few minutes it still doesn’t load, please confirm that you have configured this virtual machine according to the proper setup instructions. This includes ensuring that you have at least one network adapter installed and configured (an internal network adapter is recommended).

1. Log in as Annie, who is responsible for representing customer interests and user experience. All user passwords are P2ssw0rd.

2. Let’s get started by locating the existing storyboard. Launch Visual Studio 2013 from the taskbar and open Team Explorer. You should now be connected to the FabrikamFiber team project. If you are not automatically connected to the FabrikamFiber project, select the Connect to Team

Projects button ( ) to do so.

Figure 1Connecting to Team Explorer – Home

3. In Team Explorer – Home, select the Documents tile.

Figure 2Viewing document libraries

4. Expand the Shared Documents library and then double-click on the “FF Storyboard – Start” to load it with PowerPoint.

Figure 3Location of starting storyboard file

Note: We are using a shared location in SharePoint so that the entire team has access to the file.

5. Select the yellow Enable Editing button towards the top of the PowerPoint window.

Figure 4Enable editing of storyboard file

6. Select the Storyboarding tab at the top of the PowerPoint window.

Figure 5Initial view of storyboard in PowerPoint, showing the Storyboarding tab

Note: If you wanted to create a new storyboard from scratch, you would do so simply by loading PowerPoint and selecting the “blank presentation” option. Then use the tools provided in the Storyboarding tab.

7. These storyboard slides show how the PowerPoint storyboarding add-in can be used to mock up UI for web and mobile applications. You can take advantage of slide masters and different

layouts to create re-usable templates that are set up for your application. Select the Layout button to see some of the layouts that are available in this storyboarding PowerPoint file.

Figure 6Slide masters and layouts

Note: If you wanted to make modifications to the slide master layouts, you would do so by selecting the Edit Layout button from the Storyboarding tab.

8. Press the F5 key to view the storyboard in presentation mode. Click through the slides with the mouse or press the right arrow key until the presentation is finished. Note that the storyboard provides the look and feel for certain pieces of a web application and a Windows Phone application. Animations are used to show how the user is interacting with the application.

9. Now let’s create some additional storyboards for the Fabrikam Fiber intranet site, where employees interface with customer data and service tickets. When creating storyboards, it can be helpful to document specific scenarios that translate to user stories for the development team to implement and test. In Team Foundation Server, assume that there is a product backlog item representing a user story that states “Service rep can view service ticket details from the dashboard.”

10. Delete all the existing slides so that we can concentrate on the new user story by repeatedly pressing the Delete key (or Ctrl-A followed by Delete).

Figure 7Deleting all existing slides

11. Select the New Slide drop-down button and choose the “1_Default” layout from the “Web Browser” slide master.

Figure 8Creating a new slide using a slide master

12. Take a look at the new storyboard slide to see everything that is provided by the slide master. The entire chrome for the web application is there, which helps keep our storyboard slides looking consistent.

Figure 9New slide using the selected slide master

13. Note that the slide master also includes some placeholders for the web page title and address, which are editable. Modify the “Web page title” placeholder by entering “Dashboard” instead. This slide is going to represent the Dashboard page, which is designed to show a rollup of tickets, alerts & messages, and other company-wide information.

Figure 10Modifying placeholders provided by the slide master

14. As a quick aside, load the Fabrikam Fiber intranet site in Internet Explorer by clicking on the FF Intranet button in the favorites bar (http://intranet.fabrikam.com ) . This loads the Dashboard page. Take a glance at the UI shown here so that we can duplicate some of it in the storyboards.

Note: Although storyboards normally precede implementation, in this lab you will occasionally refer to both storyboards in development and the finished product in order to help speed up the demonstration.

Figure 11Dashboard view of Fabrikam Fiber intranet portal

15. Back in PowerPoint, add a new Text Box to the first slide.

Figure 12Adding a Text Box to the slide

16. Enter the text “Dashboard” for the new text box to create the heading for this page and position it as shown in the following screenshot. Make the text bold, use font size of 16, and select a gray font color.

Figure 13Adding content to the storyboard slide

17. Now let’s create a button named “Create New” below the Dashboard title. Select the Storyboard Shapes button from the Storyboarding tab to load the panel.

Figure 14Opening the Storyboard Shapes panel

18. In the Storyboard Shapes panel on the right-hand side, type “button” into the search box to locate the Button shape.

Figure 15Searching the shapes library

19. Drag and drop an instance of the Button shape from the Windows Apps category onto the slide, as it closely matches the shape of the existing buttons on the site

Figure 16Adding shapes to the storyboard

20. Imagine that Fabrikam Fiber has a UI style guideline in place that we must adhere to. Change the text from the default to “Create New”, choose a white font color, and choose an orange shape fill color to match the required design.

Figure 17Modifying the new button look

21. As you are storyboarding, you can create your own shapes to reuse later. Select the new button that you just created, select the Add to My Shapes button, and name the new shape Fabrikam Button.

Note: Make sure you select the outer edge of the button shape (not the center part) in order to make the Add to My Shapes button available.

Figure 18Creating a new, re-usable shape and adding it to our library

Note: You can import and export shapes to help build up a storyboarding library. In addition, you can click on the “Find more Storyboard Shapes online” hyperlink at the bottom of the Storyboard Shapes window (requires Internet connection).

22. You can sometimes speed up the storyboarding process by reusing existing assets. In this case, let’s take a screen clipping of the rest of the existing Dashboard page, rather than adding an actual data grid and manually populating it with data. First, ensure that the Internet Explorer window currently showing the Fabrikam Fiber intranet portal is visible and not minimized. Next, in the Storyboarding tab of PowerPoint, select the Screenshot drop down button and then select the Screen Clipping option.

Figure 19Using a screen clipping to speed up storyboarding

23. After PowerPoint minimizes itself to show the greyed-out Fabrikam Fiber Dashboard page, click and hold the left mouse button on the upper-left corner of the grid, move to the bottom-right to include Network Alerts, Messages, and so on, and then finally let the left mouse button up to select the region to use for the screen clipping.

Figure 20Selecting the region to clip

24. Back in PowerPoint, position and re-size the screen clipping so that it fits in nicely right below the Create New button.

Figure 21Positioning the screen clipping in the storyboard

25. Back to the scenario we are storyboarding, imagine that the employee sees this dashboard and is concerned about one of the tickets that has been open for a long time without resolution or escalation, so she decides to view it by clicking on the reference number link. This should then load a view that shows the service ticket details.

Figure 22Location of service ticket hyperlinks

26. Start storyboarding this scenario by creating a new slide using the same layout as before. The new slide should go right after the first one that you created.

Figure 23Create another slide using the same template

27. Next, add in some fake ticket details (as shown in the screenshot below) using the techniques shown in this lab so far. In addition, make use of the Street Map and Map Marker storyboarding shapes to help represent the location of the customer residence.

Note: Alternatively, you can load the “FF Storyboard - Finish” PowerPoint file from the shared documents library and then copy / paste the needed content to save time.

Figure 24Storyboarding the second slide showing service ticket details

28. When storyboarding in PowerPoint, you can also build in a representation for the flow of an application using hyperlinks from shapes. Select the first slide that shows the Dashboard, then select the image that shows the grid of tickets, and finally select the Hyperlink button from the Storyboarding tab.

Note: If we chose to create this slide using a proper grid from the Storyboard Shapes menu, instead of a screen clipping, we would be able to create a hyperlink from a specific cell instead.

Figure 25Turning the grid into a hyperlink

29. In the Insert Hyperlink window, select the Place in This Document option, choose the second slide, and select OK to create the link.

Figure 26Selecting the slide that the grid will link to

30. We can also take advantage of PowerPoint animations in order to improve the presentation of the storyboards. Return to the first slide (if not already there) and search for the “mouse pointer” shape in the Storyboard Shapes window. Drag and drop an instance of the mouse pointer onto the slide. This shape will be used to represent the user clicking on one of the service tickets on the Dashboard.

Figure 27Mouse pointer shape will be used to simulate user interaction

31. Make the mouse pointer shape larger so that it is easier to see.

Figure 28Increasing mouse pointer size

32. In the Animations tab, select the Add Animation drop-down and select the Custom Path option near the bottom (scroll down to find it).

Figure 29

Animating the mouse cursor shape with a custom path

33. Use the mouse to draw a path from the current location of the Mouse Pointer shape to one of the service ticket hyperlinks (the grid is just a picture). To do this, hold the left mouse button down near the Mouse Pointer shape and draw a line to the hyperlink, letting go of the mouse button and pressing the Escape key when done.

Figure 30Resulting path of the mouse cursor shape

34. Press Ctrl+S to save your work back to the SharePoint project portal.

Note: If you are prompted to refresh and try the save again, go ahead and do so.

35. Press the F5 key to view the storyboard in presentation mode. Press the right arrow key to start the mouse cursor animation. When it reaches the hyperlink for the service ticket, press the right arrow key to navigate to the second slide. Press the Escape key when finished.

36. At this point, let’s say that we have completed development of the storyboards and would like to link this file to a user story in Team Foundation Server. Select the Storyboard Links button from the Storyboarding tab in PowerPoint.

Figure 31Location of Storyboarding Links button

37. In the Storyboard Links window, select the Link To button to link the storyboard to a work item.

Figure 32Location of button to link storyboard to existing work item

38. In the Choose Linked Work Items window, select the Title Contains search method, enter “service ticket”, and select the Find button.

Figure 33Searching for the correct work item

39. Select a work item from the list and then select the OK button. The specific work item you select is not important to this demonstration.

Figure 34Selecting the correct work item

40. After the link has been made, you will see the work item in the Storyboard Links window. Select the Close button to finish.

Figure 35Confirmation showing that the storyboard has been linked to a work item

Exercise 2: Eliciting Feedback with the Microsoft Feedback Client

In this exercise, you will learn about the new Feedback Client. During the course of software development, it is important to capture feedback from project stakeholders (end-users, product owners, and so on) to ensure that the progress the team is making is on track to meet the requirements that the stakeholders have in mind. It enables the capture of audio, video, screenshots, and other attachments to be linked to Team Foundation Server feedback work items.

1. Log in as Annie, who is responsible for representing customer interests and user experience. All user passwords are P2ssw0rd.

2. For our purposes in this lab, let’s assume that we would like to get some feedback on the Fabrikam Fiber intranet portal’s ability to edit customer records. In Internet Explorer, load the Fabrikam Fiber web portal by clicking on the TFS FF Portal link on the favorites bar. Under the Other Links heading, select the Request feedback link.

Figure 36Initiating a request for feedback

3. In the Request Feedback window, select Brian Keller as the stakeholder to request feedback from. Use the Web Application option and enter the URL to the intranet site, http://intranet.fabrikam.com. In the textbox just under the URL, provide the instructions to go along with the web application, “Please use IE 9 or higher.” Title the feedback request “Please provide some feedback on the current customer records editing functionality.” Also provide some instructions below the title text box, such as “Go to intranet portal, click on Customer link, then Edit link for any customer.”

Figure 37Creating the request for feedback

Note: You can add as many feedback items as you want by clicking on the ‘Add feedback item’ link.

4. Once the feedback request is ready to go, select the Send button to send email to Brian.

Figure 38Sending email with the feedback request

5. After the feedback request is sent, a feedback message is added to the Fabrikam Fiber web portal Home screen. This work item has a type of Feedback Request.

Figure 39Newly created Feedback Request work item

6. Now let’s simulate Brian receiving the email and starting a feedback session from that. Open an explorer window and navigate to the c:\inetpub\mailroot\drop folder. Find the most recent email message and double-click to open it in Outlook. You may need to wait for a minute for the email message to show up.

Note: The VM that you are using for this lab does not have a full email server running on it, therefore we will simulate sending and receiving email with this extra step.

Figure 40Simulation of Brian receiving feedback request email

7. With the email open in Outlook, select the “Start your feedback session” link to start the Feedback Client.

Figure 41Starting feedback session directly from email

8. After the Feedback Client has started, select the application link to load the Fabrikam Fiber intranet portal.

Figure 42Starting the application as instructed

9. Select the Next button to move on to the next step to provide the requested feedback.

Figure 43Selecting Next button

10. Follow the instructions provided by selecting the Customers link to navigate to the Customers page.

Figure 44Navigating to Customers page

11. Next, select the Edit link for one of the listed customers.

Figure 45Editing customer details

12. Brian knows that customer records contain phone numbers, and the users of the Fabrikam Fiber intranet portal commonly need to update these phone numbers for customers who are calling about their service. Here we can see that the edit screen does not allow us to update that customer field.

Figure 46

Viewing the customer edit screen

13. In the Feedback Manager window, enter some feedback about this issue such as “We need to provide a way to update customer phone numbers.”

Figure 47Adding feedback

14. Attach a screenshot by clicking on the Screenshot button in the Feedback Manager window.

Figure 48Screenshot button

15. By default, this will allow you to draw a rectangle to define the region that you wish to capture. Hold the left mouse button down and move the mouse until you highlight the entire customer record form (from website in Internet Explorer window). It is often useful to provide as much context as possible when describing an issue.

Figure 49Screenshot added to feedback

Note: It is easy to annotate screenshots by double-clicking on them in the Feedback Client to load them in the configured tool (MS Paint by default).

16. Note that it is also possible to record video and audio, add additional file attachments, and edit the feedback text using rich text capabilities of the Feedback Client.

Figure 50Additional methods to provide feedback

17. Let’s say that, aside from the missing field, we think that the customer edit screen looks good. Rate the item 4/5 stars to provide the team some measurable feedback.

Figure 51Rating the feedback based on the request

18. Select the Next button to move on to the submission part of the feedback.

Figure 52Done entering feedback

19. Review your feedback and then select the Submit and Close button to finish.

Figure 53Submitting feedback

20. Return to the Fabrikam Fiber web portal, navigate to the Home page, and then select the blue Feedback tile in the Team Favorites section.

Figure 54Loading the Feedback Requests work item query

21. Locate the Feedback Response that was just created.

Note: Due to our workflow simulation, the feedback response will be incorrectly titled becausewe have been logged in as Annie throughout the lab. Imagine that the Title of the new work item actually reads “Feedback Response from Brian Keller…”

Figure 55Feedback Response work item selected

22. Double-click on the Feedback Response work item to open it. The Notes tab is selected by default so that you can see the direct feedback.

Figure 56Feedback Response notes

23. Finally, select the All Links tab and note that this Feedback Response work item is a child of the original Feedback Request work item that was emailed to Brian.

Figure 57Feedback responses are automatically linked to the original request

To give feedback please write to VSKitFdbk@Microsoft.com

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