Learn how to use Expression Blend to design great user experiences, from concept to production, with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Silverlight. See how Expression Blend makes design workflow faster, easier and richer, and explore how designers can lead the interactive experience throughout the design process.
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Celso Gomes
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Christian SchormannChristian Schormann is the Group Program Manager for Expression Blend, responsible for product planning and definition of Expression Blend and Design, and for long term product strategy of the Expression suite as a whole. Christian brings to Microsoft his background in high-end video editing and compositing systems (including Jaleo, Softimage|DS, and Avid Liquid). He has also been involved with 3D animation and music software. He has been involved with many aspects of software development hands-on, including product design, development, various levels of management, CTO-style work, and business and strategy planning.
13 Comments
aL said
March 20, 2009
cool stuff :)
but what about exsisting projects? most of the time we're continuing work on things that already exsist, perhhaps prototyping an extension or planning for vNext
it would be really really useful if you could apply or open up sketchflow on an exsisting app and have the exsisting relations between pages layed out.
i realise thats a challenge but olny getting the usercontrols would be great too
i'd really like to see more info on channel 9 (or something, blogs whatever) on how schetch flow works, how it identifies pages and elements and so forth and how you can use it with exsisting apps :)
Vaughan Knight said
March 23, 2009
Was a great session. Really looking forward to getting our hands on Sketch Flow at work.
Alexander Renneberg said
March 25, 2009
Well, as always, the "Sketch-Flow" concept still has to prove itself in a real software project setting.
The "application flow" view looks interesting. It looks like that the software designer can model the overall process the software shall support. As I see it, a sketch can be assigned to each process step.
How sophisticated this modeling capability really is remains to be seen.
Is it suitable to show this "application flow" process to clients or real end-user for feedback?
Can I import these processes to "Sketch-Flow"/Blend (e.g. from Visio)?
So I really have dozen of more questions.
As someone who still uses Visio for sketching and modeling, I am really looking forward to try out Sketch-Flow in Blend.
Waldemir Cambiucci said
March 28, 2009
Sketch Flow seems to be a great tool for demos and looks interesting for a first discussion with our clients, for example.
For sure, I am really looking forward to try out this features, mainly the sketching buttons and its look-and-feel so nice! :) Great session!
Rico Alexander said
May 10, 2009
Amazing work guys! I can see this tool tranforming our development process.
Neil Monroe said
June 10, 2009
I can see this application being used for meetings with clients on an interactive whiteboard. That way you wouldn't even need to mess around with a laptop keyboard, mouse, etc.
There are some exciting features here and even though it's only in the Microsoft world of technologies, that won't matter at this stage of production because the end web site can use whatever means is necessary--these are early prototypes.
Dan McVeagh said
July 22, 2009
Very Nice. In the video Christian says that when you run the project that Blend creates a SketchFlow player file that can be copied to the web sever to allow stake holders to view the prototype remotely. What files need to be copied to deploy SketchFlow prototype to the web server? Is there a built-in deployment feature in the plans for Blend such as the one available for Expression Web?
mgutz said
July 30, 2009
wow. i've used other flow programs and this is far and above better than anything i have used. simply awesome.
Nathan5.x said
August 21, 2009
Mind blowing work by Microsoft.. Hats off too Blend & Sketch Flow team...
Nathan5.x said
August 21, 2009
Mind blowing work by Microsoft.. Hats off too Blend & Sketch Flow team...
Michael L. Long said
September 14, 2009
Absolutely exceptional. I used this as a quick start into getting SketchFlow (didn't know a thing about it) up, running and building a prototype for a project I'm already heavily involved with.
This will be revolutionary for me, as I am a veteran developer and have found it difficult to fully / properly merge the design side of WPF it into my head. I keep winding up acting like a developer and coding things that I -shouldn't-. So I think SketchFlow will help me tremendously in this regard as well :)
Emerson said
September 15, 2009
I am using Blend 3
There doesn't appear to be a dragdropitem bevior?!
Michael L. Long said
September 17, 2009
Re: Emerson,
Yes that is true. It appears they only included a very minimal amount of behaviors in the release.
I can only speculate as to why. Perhaps the behavior code wasn't up to standards. Or maybe they want to force or encourage the community to provide them. Even if it's one, both, or none of those reasons, it is bad they've done this, since there would be many designers that don't know anything about programming and have no way of personally resolving this issue, which means they can't use the product to do what it's intended to do. Allow them to quickly -and easily- mock up ideas that are interactive in a way closely matching what they have in their head.
The official community source for behaviors should grow (hopefully!) over time. I haven't looked into incorporating any of them yet as I'm too busy back on track with my current project that doesn't involve SketchFlow, but take a look at the following and also roam the base Behaviors section for other potentially useful implementations:
http://gallery.expression.microsoft.com/en-us/DragDropBehavior