Working with Russell and Abby. We jumped in and were talking about a small mock-up that Russell is working on for a budgeting app. The first part of the meeting was a mini layout critique of sorts. Here are some of my notes.

- Talking about AI, what it can and can't do,  and getting some good ideas. Often, it helps creating a good starting place or places for your project. Depending on the detail level, it may do the first part or the whole thing.

- Talking about context windows (what it can take in and apply to the current project) and how to keep things consistent along the same lines.

- Russell was showing us some character animations and what they are doing to help AI keep things straight. Realistic references - consistency - character drift - you need a reference from almost every angle. Also mixing both text (prompts) and images, keeping it consistent.

- Russell was asking Abby about basic flow, just based off of what was being presented in the visual. What is next and where can I go? What should I do? Getting input and feedback. Basically, user feedback tests or UX tests.

- We talked about tours and walk throughs. Sometimes helpful and sometimes not. Ways to help the user get oriented.

- As we were talking, Russell was gleaning information from the us (his fake users). You have to record that feedback and those ideas. No way that just one person could think up everything.

- Being intentional in your decisions.

- Talking to people about your product, using mock-ups (visuals and flows), vs just building it. Good design and planning go a long way. That is huge.

- Making decisions based off of user input.

- The interfaces changes and only tells you what it has to (just in time interface changes - single page apps - SPA's).

- Taking the time, up front, to get the design, flow, and training nailed down.

- You can make things that look good, but eventually, you also need to be able to code it and/or get help coding it.

- Narrowing it (the scope or project) down to the specific needs and requirements of that project.

- Getting a valid sign-off based off of mock-ups and design flow. Russell was saying that if you increase your skills to do quick mock-ups, that helps solve things before you ever go to code. Helping people walk through it. Letting them taste the vision or selling the sizzle. Everybody gives their opinion, signs offs, and everybody is sold on it, even before it really exits. Talking about emotions in marketing.

Switched gears and started working on the content management system that we are working on. Talking about helping others and spreading the love. Helping to teach others, use that as a learning and a growing philosophy.

https://github.com/RussellMoore1987/code-doc - This is the GitHub repo for the content management and documentation template that we are working on. It will end up being the underpinnings of the presentation gallery. That, the gallery, will be the top few layers (visual fluff and key bullet points) and then we will use this content and documentation template as the meat and potatoes for the real screenshots, videos, text, and other content. I'm excited about it. The project will be big, but I also feel like it will help tremendously.