In June I wrote about some problems I ran into with a USB dev board.  The board seemed unusually sensitive.  When I would get my finger near a button, it would trigger.  Although it isn't thoroughly tested, the board below is my newest AT90USB development board.  It features a surface mount crystal (my first), and the ground outline around the board.  I also included pads for decoupling capacitors on the two buttons.

While I have not had time to completely test the board, it already seems to be less "twitchy".  While I would love to attribute this to my grounding changes, that probably isn't the case.  A friend informs me that RF coming from the processor probably is not terribly concerned with my silly ground.  At the same time, I did shorten some leads...and the longer, more problematic leads are right next to the grounded zone.

You might be asking a really good question right now.  Why not just use a bone fide ground plane?  This is a single layer board.  While it does not have many features, it does quite well with only one layer.  If (or when) I introduce another layer, it will also be a signal layer.  As a result, I am using this opportunity to experiment with various RF management strategies.