5. UX Skillzes

Sorry for the haxx0r lingo… but I’ve been liking it a lot lately. So, what are UX Skills? In short, this has nothing to do with Silverlight. Silverlight (or Flash, or WPF) are technologies that make it easier to create a better User Experience. At the end of the day though, it is the developer / designer that has the responsibility of creating the experience. the platform just makes it easier to realize that designers vision. No tool can completely make up for a lack of skill.

User Experience (UX) is made up of multiple areas and disciplines. Including concepts like Information Architecture (IA), Interaction Design (ID), Visual Design, Human-Computer Interaction studies, Human Interaction Psychology, etc…

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfaceappeal/3085503904/

Some of the resources that I use to hone UX principles and concepts:

• Jared Spool’s UIE Podcasts
• Silverlight Team Blog
• Microsoft Expression Community
• Chris Bernard’s Design Thinking Blog
• Mix Design Articles
• Stephen P. Anderson’s Poet Painter blog and Slideshare Presentations
• My Delicious UX Bookmarks

4. .NET Voodoo

My favorite feature of Silverlight 2 and beyond is that it has the .NET CLR built in to it. That means that .NET developers are able to leverage their existing skills while creating amazing applications in Silverlight. This has also opened up the door to a number of .NET libraries and resources being ported to Silverlight. Some of my favorites, Ninject, Rhino Mocks, Dynamic Proxy, SL Unity from Microsoft, WPF Pixel Shaders. To become a Silverlight Expert, be prepared to flex some .NET muscle.

3. The Way of the Web

While Silverlight is more like WPF and WinForm development than ASP.NET development it’s still important to realize that you are building for the Web. That means that learning technologies like REST (ADO.NET Data Services), JavaScript, the browser’s document object model (DOM), browser sandboxing and using tools like Fiddler are going to be important to you.

2. Blend / Visual Studio Combo

Aside from .NET being in Silverlight, the other awesome feature of Silverlight is that the UI is built with XAML, the same UI platform that WPF uses. That means that Microsoft’s design tool, Expression Blend, is what you use to design UI in Silverlight. This provides the most amazing workflow between designers and developers. Blend 3 is amazing. While Blend 2 is great for mocking a single screen, Blend 3 is awesome at quickly creating mocks for an entire applications. Including features like SketchFlow, mock application data and many more incredible features.

1. Get Started with Silverlight –

So there you go… my last step is to go get started! I find that many people avoid the first step of working with Silverlight because they are intimidated by the newness of it all. I also find that once people do get started, they are usually surprised by how familiar development in Silverlight actually is. Enjoy!

• Silverlight.net – the official Microsoft site for developers and Silverlight designers. Specifically, make sure to check out the getting started section and the how to videos!
• SilverZine – Silverlight designer / developer, Alex Knight, started this great collection of links and tutorials for Silverlight designers. I found out about the site through a Silverlight insiders email list that I’m on, and I’m glad I did! There are some great insights and resources here! 
• http://twitter.com/silverlightshow – this actually is a great collection of links and pointers to some really nice Silverlight content.

OK, so those are my top 5 steps. What are yours? Did I miss anything important? Add yours to the comments.

In June I’ll be the local Silverlight expert, leading a technology track on Rich Internet Applications (RIA) at a Microsoft’s BizSpark event, SparkStart.

From the official announcement:

SparkStart is a full day of business and technology discussion (open format) and learning event for startups (“startup bootcamp”). This event will also be a networking opportunity for those startups who are new to the BizSpark program and not yet enrolled in the program and would like to mingle and learn from key business and technology influencers. It will also be an event for those startups who are recently enrolled and need to keep the momentum going by learning key strategies for success, both in business, and in technology.

I’m looking forward to checking out Microsoft’s new Technology Center in Las Colinas, TX – It’s an amazing building!

It’s going to be an incredible event for startups and entrepreneurs to learn, network and get to know some of the incredible technologies that are now available. I’m especially looking forward to hanging out with some of the other people that will be presenting at the event. (too name a few)

• Local start up expert, Alex Muse
• Social Media Expert, Giovanni Gallucci
• Blake Burris of Facebook development and CoHabitat fame
• Angel investment and venture consulting mastermind Marc Nathan
• Microsoft User Experience Architect Christian Thilmany
• Microsoft Architect Brian Gorbett

Check out SparkStart on twitter and read some of Christian’s other related posts. Be sure to register. It’s going to be an amazing day!

I’ll be speaking at the Big Design Conference in Dallas. From the website:

The Big Design Conference is an intense day of learning within the scope of Strategy, Social Media, User Experience, and Code Development. Experts from across the country will gather to present theories, research, experiences, and best practices to students, professionals, and executives looking to stay on the bleeding edge.

My 1pm topic is “Bring Back the Sexy: What’s New in Silverlight 3 and Why Everyone Should Care”. Basically I’m going to be walking through some of the awesome goodness that’s been added to Silverlight 3 like 3D Support, hardware acceleration, custom shaders and behaviors, offline/out of browser integration, Blend 3, plus the new line of business features like data forms and WCF integrations. You know, all the awesome Silverlight sexy that I can get in to my allotted hour. it’s gonna be awesome.

Be sure to register today (tickets are selling fast!) – See you there!

• Big (D)esign Conference
• Big (D)esign After Party
• (Free) Style & Travelocity Design Challenge

Last month Microsoft released the Release Canidate1 of Windows 7. For what it’s worth I will say that I like it, more importantly, my wife likes it too. Just like Vista has nicer features than XP (no seriously, I actually like Vista!), there are features in Win7 that I really like over Vista. That being said, after spending two months on a Mac, here are the things that I wish Microsoft would “barrow” from Apple before Windows 7 RTMs.

Apple’s “Show Desktop” Implementation

 I like Win7’s Desktop Peak. But let’s be real. When I want to look at my desktop, it’s probably because I want to do something on my desktop. If I click on the “Show Desktop” button, then everything get minimized and I loose my place when I’m done with the desktop (I have to go restore all of my Windows manually). Macs have this great feature that let’s me, in a single motion, push everything to the side, lets me see and work with my desktop, then with a single click anywhere on the edge of the screen and I’m back to where I was before. Awesome. Dear Microsoft, I know what they’ll say, you stole it. Mac had it first. it doesn’t matter. Go ahead, take it. It’s a better implementation. thx.

Apples “Widget” View

I like Widgets, I like Gadgets. I’m not talking about Apple’s widget “zoom in” and “zoom out” views (although those are nice!), nor am I talking about how Windows 7’s Gadgets can go anywhere on the desktop and are always on your desktop (although I like that too!) I am specifically talking about the scenarios when you have a bunch of windows open and your in the middle of working and you need to take a quick look at your widgets/gadgets. On a mac you set your Expose’s hot spots to bring up your “dashboard”, in Windows 7 you either “peak” at your desktop, or you press the Win+G keys.Here’s the thing, on a mac when you do that, they do a dark overlay on the rest of your desktop. It makes it really easy to to focus in on your widgets and see them quickly. it sounds like a small thing, but you already know how busy your screen can get when you’re working on various projects and then you try to see your gadgets and they just don’t stand out very well.Dear Microsoft, please fade out the background when I push Win+G. kthx.

Apple’s Colors.

Not all of their colors. I like some of the rich look of Vista and Windows 7, but here’s something that I noticed while working on the mac. The “system tray” (or whatever you call it) is boring. Everything is the same color. Compare that to the spectrum of color that the average Windows user is used to. It’s not that color is bad… but I’m starting to think that business is. Business and clutter compete for your attention, and let’s face it… the reason that it’s in the system tray is because it’s important.. it’s just not that important. I know that I’m focusing on the system tray, but really I’m talking an over all effort to make the things that I want to focus on, visually focusable (is that a word?). Reduce noise, increase signal.

So what does Windows 7 have going for it?

A lot. But here’s the thing that it soooo much better on Win7. The Taskbar – so much better than the dock or expose for moving between applications – especially tabbed windows. On one hand, I really like the pop and slide of exposes, and I really like the fish eye affect in the mac dock… but here’s the deal, the dock is great for launching applications, but it’s lousy for moving between open applications. The new Win 7 dock does an amazing job of organizing all of your open tabs regardless of which window their in. It really creates a nice, unified way to move between the things that you are working on and to close the things that you don’t care about. I know that it sounds trivial, but think about where you spend your time – it makes a difference.

What about you? What are you love / hates with Windows 7 or teh mac?

BTW – Travis promised to teach me some mac foo… I’ll have to post again after that!

I finally had time to announce the winners for the Fit In Feb Developer Challenge. Check out Peter’s before and after picture. Awesome!

Go see the rest of the winners over at my “Get Less of Me” health blog.

I’m looking forward to doing another event like this at some point in the future. I’ll just need to find better ways to automate more of the process and do daily leader boards and that sort of thing.

What sort of “Healthy Developer” contest would you like to see?

It’s easy for people to look at us and think that we are *just* an amazing consulting and rural sourcing company pioneering agile in the Microsoft space and providing incredible service to our customers… well, I’m writing this post to make sure that you (yes, you specifically dear reader) know that we are also an incredible Microsoft Training Company.

Specifically, that we specialize in training on the Microsoft platform in the Dallas area. Our *ahem* Silverlight expert has written a 3 day extensive course on Microsoft Silverlight (outline available soon), another course on Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX and a combo “Developing Rich Internet Application on the Microsoft Platform” course. We also do the gauntlet Microsoft’s Official Curriculum, but really focus on delivering the right training to you and your team which usually  involves customizing the MOC with our own custom modules. Our customer’s seam to really like that approach!

Why did I write this blog post?

I know it sounds more like a marketing spin than my normal blog posts. I did this for two reasons. First, because we really are an awesome training company and I’m looking for was to let more people know about that (both of you). Second, I am working more and more with our Microsoft practice to define our offerings in a “customer friendly, easily consumable” way, and in a very practical sense this is an exercise for me in writing about who we are and what we do… so what do you think? Did it sound just write, too markety or overly technical? I’m really looking for your feedback here to help me improving this style of writing for me. Thanks!

What is an MVP?  From the official site:

“MVPs are a select group of experts representing technology’s best and brightest people who share a commitment to community. While MVPs come from many backgrounds and a wide range of technical communities, they share a passion for technology and a demonstrated willingness to help others”

So without further ado… let me introduce the 6 Microsoft MVPs from Improving :

Chris Tullier  – Visual Studio Team System MVP

 Chris joined Improving this year as a Principal consultant and was awarded with the Team System MVP April 1st (congrats Chris!). He works directly with Microsoft and many engagements and is a VSTS / TFS rock star. Seriously, he get the nuts and bolts of the tooling, but also grasp the business side of software engineering in ways that I’ve never really thought of before. “What’s your branching / release strategy?” “How are you managing your migration?” Huh? Chris has it covered. He’s the co-founder of the Dallas Team System User Group and in also the founder of the weekly online VSTS chat sessions over at http://www.teamsystemlive.com.

Tim Rayburn – Microsoft BizTalk MVP

Tim is our newest Principal consultant. Tim has been a recipient of the exclusive BizTalk MVP award for the last two consecutive years. Tim is also a member of Microsoft’s BizTalk Virtual Technical Specialist team, which is the closest that you can get to working for Microsoft with out actually moving to Redmond .  Not only is Tim at total BizTalk Ninja, he’s also one of the leading authorities on C# development (total CodeRush Samurai), application architecture, as well as all things Work Flow and WCF related (he’s the president of the Dallas Connected Systems User Group). Tim is also a national speaker for INETA, he travels all over North America investing in others and delivering his top notch – information packed – presentations.

David O’Hara – ASP.NET MVP

Dave is another CodeRush Ninja. He’s worked almost exclusively in ASP.NET MVC since joining Improving, he’s a frequent presenter at various .NET User Groups and conferences and currently helps run the local Presenter Mentor group. You’ll often find Dave sitting with his Mac, participating in an Alt.NET conference and showing others how they can be code ninjas too!

Todd Girvin – C# MVP

Todd is one of the co-founder’s of Improving and also runs the Microsoft Practice here. He’s seriously one of the best people that you will ever have on your team. Not only does Todd get the business development side of running a Microsoft practice but is also one of the most efficient and lethal developers that you will ever meet. I once worked on a project with Todd where he mentored developer’s around the globe while simultaneously increased the performance of there application by over 36 times! (this was actually a really big deal; ask me about it sometime and I’ll give you the rest of the details. ) Todd is also a frequent presenter at various conferences and leads the Dallas C# User Group.

Jef Newsom – Architecture MVP

Jef is the other co-founder of Improving Enterprises and is the current CIO (Chief Instigation Officer – as he puts it). Jef’s really smart. Like wicked smart. If he were an X-Man he’d be Prof X… without that whole stuck in a wheel chair thing. Jef is one of the (less than) hundred or so Microsoft Certified Architects in the world. Jef is a frequent presenter at various events and is a Microsoft Certified Trainer.

Caleb Jenkins – ASP.NET MVP (Silverlight)

OK.. so I’m a little very humbled to be included in this group.  If you really want to know about me go check out my about page, mvp profile, look at the talks that I’ve given, or follow me on twitter. Over 2 years ago I left Microsoft to join the guys at Improving as employee number 7. Today we have over 50 full time employees… and 7 current or past MVPs!

Did you say 7? I thought there were 6? ah… keep reading my friend.

Peter Brunone – 7 time ASP.NET MVP

and I would be completely remiss if I didn’t mention Peter. Peter was one of the first ever Microsoft ASP/ASP.NET MVPs and won the award seven years in a row! Currently, Peter is our resident SharePoint samurai and is doing amazing things in SharePoint development for us. Peter blogs on Microsoft’s official asp.net site and also wrote the Easy List Box control. Go check it out!

Want to keep up with all of the bloggers at Improving? Go subscribe to the composite feed!

“The Microsoft MVP Award Program recognizes and thanks outstanding members of technical communities for their community participation and willingness to help others. The MVP Award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who foster the free and objective exchange of knowledge by actively sharing their real-world expertise with technology users.” – Says Rich Kaplan, Microsoft Vice President

I’m especially encouraged by the first three Linux MVP’s that were named… Joseph Hill (Mono product manager and seriously smart C# guy), Miguel de Lcaza (creator of the Mono Project) and whurley, Chief Architect of Open Source Strategy for BMC, BarCamp organizer, evil genius and blogger

.)

“I’m excited to see Microsoft finally embrace the broader technical community and recognize the contributions that Linux developers on the Mono project continue to make to the Microsoft platforms.” – Says Joseph Hill, Mono Product Manger and new MVP recipient

I’m pretty sure that the “partnership” between Microsoft’s Silverlight team and the Mono team’s Moonlight project are starting to pay off.

“To think that Microsoft has finally recognized my life long effort to open source their various operating systems and software products is astounding,” said BMC Chief Architect of Open Source Strategy whurley “clearly Microsoft is finally on the path to embracing open source in a meaningful way that will benefit both the company, and the community at large.”

Of course, I’m still wondering if there will ever be room in this “new” open world for a Linus Torvalds MVP?

Update: already 44 hits on Digg!

This week I will be at the Microsoft MVP Summit in Seattle, while I’m there I will take the time to present at the local .NET User Group. If you are in the area be sure to stop by. It’s going to be a “double feature” between my “Developing Loosely Coupled Applications” talk and my friend, and fellow MVP, Dennis Bottjer will be giving his amazing talk on SharePoint Performance. It’s gonna be awesome!

Next week I’ll be attending the 2009 MVP Summit in Seattle with fellow MVP and Improving’er David O’Hara.  I’m especially looking forward to the sessions on the up and coming new technologies and to catch up with the various product teams and other MVPs! If you’ll be in the in the Seattle area next week look me up!