Part of my app requires extracting a date from the line of text. To do this I use a regular expression to pick the substring that has the date, then use a date format to parse it.
Heres a screen shot my first version of getting that information. The user inputs both the regex and the date format.
After a while it became clear to me that the regex could be derived from the date format. Because each symbol in the date format maps to a symbol in the regex.
Heres a my second version.
The last improvement I've made is to try work out what the date format is by guessing each format from a set of known formats. By doing this its possible you wont need to do anything, just click next.
The app is no where near complete, if there is such a thing. But these small usability improvements make a big difference. Now when I have to do some manual testing, it takes a fraction of the time.
Heres a fantastic book Dont make me think worth a read.
Dont make me think!
<span title='2013-01-20 22:05:00 -0800 -0800'>January 20, 2013</span> · 1 min · Stephen Nancekivell