WUX205 Designing and Prototyping in WPF and Microsoft Silverlight: A Case Study

This session was a case study on building an app hey called staff lynx (for temporary staff agencies) Easy deployment, Highly intuitive UI are 2 requirements when doing SAS. Suggests making all links/sections uri accessible. Suggested search should be more like Google, not a big customizable search pages. A interesting effect he showed, Faded the main screen back when opened up a sub screen. Don’t make 1st project time-sensitive, something usually comes up to slow you down. Data templates are a powerful feature in WPF/Silverlight. Suggested try to make app non-linear. A tooltip in WPF/silver light can be anything not just some simple text. Don’t think of screen as set of rectangles that we pour stuff into. Subtle use of gradient color is effective, easier on the eyes. Advanced UI is worth it, but needs a lot more experimenting. Home screen resonates w/ users. Animation essential to a natural feel (thinga normally don’t just blink away….seeing things move away is more natural) Use both sides of brain, developers tend to be left brained, visual sense, pattern recognition are right brained skills. (A book, “A Whole New Mind“ by Daniel H Pink). Do interaction patterns early, styling later things are easy to restyle later.