Friday, April 6, 2012

Plugin Development Guidelines for a Seamless User Experience


I've been evaluating a lot of utility plugins for Cinema 4D, based on my experiences, here are a few suggestions on creating a better user-experience. In no particular order:
  • As much as possible, make your tool fit seamlessly into your user's existing workflow.
  • Follow the visual conventions of the application:
  • Make your icons looks as much like native icons as possible. No-one likes the bolt-on appearance of most plugin icons.
  • Gray out your icon if your tool isn't appropriate to a given mode.
  • Ensure that your plugin is undo friendly.
  • Choose a simple descriptive name, it should feel like just another command.
  • Write a mouse-over help string, include any useful key-commands
  • It's better to make simpler discreet tools that don't require user-interaction than one giant tool with a million options.
  • Fully document your tool: written docs, video tutorials, and multiple example files.

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