Author: Dave December 28, 2007

I’ve had some very cool feedback on Attest 1.0, and got some great ideas from other developers on how to improve on Attest 2.0 for the Adobe Flex 3 Developer Certification Exam when that comes along eventually. I’m compiling a list of features that I personally would like to see, but if you’ve used Attest and have some feedback, fill me in! I want to hear any ideas that would make Attest kick some butt!

Some ideas that I had, as well as ideas from other developers using Attest are:

• Learning Mode:
  • Should allow user to choose amount of questions for custom tests. This way the user may only have 10 mins to spare, but could still create a custom test (5-10 questions for example)
  • Ability to check the answer during viewing of the questions for learning mode only. Instant feedback would be nice.

• Test Mode:
  • Same ability to choose custom number of questions and time for each test, as well as the premade tests.
  • Possibly view the results per question as stated above, rather than go to a different results page.

These are great suggestions, and from a usability standpoint they make sense. Adding a “learning” mode would be very cool, because Attest wouldn’t only serve as a practice exam, but a more mature learning tool in itself. When the user felt they were ready to really be tested, they could pop into Test mode and challenge their knowledge with instant results.

Currently, Attest is a stand alone practice exam with 6 pre-made tests. It was my original concept to have some customizable features like allowing the user to create custom tests. They could set their own time limits, amount of questions, maybe allow the program to pick random questions, or focus on one particular group like UI, or Data Services questions only for a quick refresher on a weak area.

I’m actually using the down time from the holiday season to get started creating a proof of concept for myself written in Java. I’d like to have Attest 2.0 cross-platform, and have it more robust in general since it seems to be filling a gap in learning tools for Adobe products. Attest 1.0 has been live since November, 9, 2007 and seems like it’s going to be a hit! So now that I know people dig it, I’ll look into making Attest 2.0 beefier and more of a learning tool in general.

Another thing I originally wanted to do was create other versions of the program for ColdFusion, Flash, DreamWeaver, and possibly cover all of Adobe’s certification exams. This would be a task in itself, so we’ll have to see what the future holds 😉 but we can at least count on a future Flex 3 cert version with some more muscle.

Have any feedback on ideas you’d like to see implemented on Attest? Toss them out, don’t bottle them up!