Beyond Lorem Ipsum and why QWERTYUIOP ASDFGHJKL is not good enough.

Whether you’re presenting designs for software interfaces, or working versions of software, using good example data can make the difference between a presentation that goes smoothly and a stuttering mess of interruptions.

Ham-fisted developers often have the tendency to SAgfjhtdFYT ITRYFITY their way through form fields when testing application forms, and this soon leads to an interface that bears no resemblance its real-world existence. Worse still, they erase all data from the application with each build so that the interface remains in an “infant” state.

Why use good example data?

• Enjoy distraction-free presentations. Never again hear “Those dates are wrong.” “That name appears twice.” “That’s not in alphabetical order.” etc.
• Identify short-coming in the design. Will designs scale to fit content? Will truncation handling be necessary?
• Find bugs. Does auto-complete work properly? Will it handle non-alphanumeric characters?
• Mitigate developer aversion to complexity Though it pains them, real-world data reveal bugs earlier and helps developers build better tests.

How can example data best be used?

• Pre-sort the data so it appears in the desired alphabetical and/or chronological order.
• For wireframes, use names consistently to better illustrate a real user scenario.
• De-duplicate examples to avoid confusion.
• Compile large example sets of data that populate the application with each build.

What tools can help me create better example data?

• The classic Lorem Ipsum generator is best used sparingly for user-generated paragraphs of text like bio, notes, description. Using it to complete our incomplete design is not advised.
• The Calendar Date Generator from RANDOM.ORG allows you to generate random calendar dates useful for inboxes, tables and… um… calendars.
• The Integer Generator from RANDOM.ORG allows you to generate random integers for things like phone numbers, file sizes, and quantities.
• The Random Name Generator uses data from the US Census to randomly generate male and female names. Most useful for names, but with a bit of processing can be useful to generate usernames, and domains.
• Existing files are a great source of data. Use Google’s filetype operator to find Excel files, CSV files or plain text files

Have your own favourites? Please post in the comments and I’ll update this post accordingly.