Gustav Brock
Gustav at cactus.dk
Fri Dec 9 05:59:57 CST 2011
Hi all I went to the two-day course in programming Windows Phone 7. A developer track and a UX track were offered; I picked the UX track as I found it best to have a solid foundation here - the coding stuff is easier to pick up later. That was a good pick. The session was lead by Arturo Toledo, Sr. User Experience Designer at Microsoft for the Windows Phone Design Studio. He also runs a comprehensive site which I believe contains or links to anything you may wish to know about design for WP7: http://ux.artu.tv/ His partner was Jared Potter (Design Integration Lead) - also called the Pixel Manager as his team approves any graphics going to the phone interface. Should you ever come across a session with either of these, do sign in. They know just about anything about what's happening at the screen surface of a Windows Phone, and both are men of great humour who it's a pleasure to spend some time with. /gustav >>> Gustav at cactus.dk 02-12-2011 22:17 >>> Hi Shamil et al Very well! Quite often app development starts with just some sketches. I've learned that this is called UX sketching (for User eXperience). Tools exist for this. Here is one by Sara Summers for the panorama view of Metro: http://www.uxarray.com/2010/11/18/prototyping-sketch-sheets-wp7/ and the sheet to print and cut and draw upon: http://www.uxarray.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/PaperPrototype_Sketchbook_WP7_Metro.pdf Another one by Rashid Ali is here: Windows Phone 7 UX Sketch Templates http://blog.merrycode.com/windows-phone-7-ux-sketch-templates/ The official guide is here: User Experience Design Guidelines for Windows Phone http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh202915(v=VS.92).aspx Also, a single, full download of everything needed to get started with WP7+ development is here: Windows Phone SDK 7.1 http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27570 The Windows Phone SDK includes a major collection of software: * Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone * Windows Phone Emulator * Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Assemblies * Silverlight 4 SDK and DRT * Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Extensions for XNA Game Studio 4.0 * Microsoft Expression Blend SDK for Windows Phone 7 * Microsoft Expression Blend SDK for Windows Phone OS 7.1 * WCF Data Services Client for Window Phone * Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone Please note the upscaled system requirements. No WinXP here, and DirectX 9 is an absolute minimum (DirectX 10 is needed for games). The 3 GB is a minimum too, as the Windows Phone Emulator (which on-screen mimics a physical phone) alone eats a whopping 800 MB. Note that the Ultimate ($)version of Expression Blend does feature SketchFlow to create sketches on screen: http://blogs.microsoft.nl/blogs/ux/archive/2011/06/16/sketchflow-for-windows-phone-the-real-one.aspx As for the Northwind.Net porting to WP7, I'll have to think about it. Some challenge - both for the UI design as well as the database connection. Not the first project to work with for me. Finally, don't forget the free 1000-page Microsoft Press ebook: Programming Windows Phone 7: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=24519 /gustav >>> Salakhetdinov Shamil <mcp2004 at mail.ru> 02-12-2011 01:11 >>> Hi All -- FYI:* I have got purchased today Nokia Lumia 800 with WP 7.5 Mango. First impression: it's a very nice toy and a very user friendly device. :) I have never used smart-phones before (I have been waiting when something useful will come released by MS) - and here I have got it. One have to touch it, feel its weight and to use it to get a feeling how well it's done - Gustav noted here at Access-D/dba-VB several times how smooth his Windows phone is - and now I understand Gustav :) And, again as Gustav noted here previously, getting accustomed to use this device virtual keyboard takes a few minutes - and I have never felt myself comfortable with mobile phones keyboards when typing SMS messages - but with Windows Phone virtual keyboard typing text is an easy exercise, even using one hand to keep the phone and the same hand palm's just one finger - the thumb one - I can type text rather quickly - well done! I have got connected to my Wi-Fi WAP and used Windows Phone to browse Internet, follow hyperlinks, type search keywords and run searches - nice! Now an interesting and useful challenge would be to make our Northwind.Net project's (http://northwind.codeplex.com/) ASP.NET version with Windows Phone 7.5 friendly UI - anybody interested to discuss/participate in such a project with deadline currently set for, say, 6 months? Thank you. -- Shamil _______________________________________________ dba-VB mailing list dba-VB at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-vb http://www.databaseadvisors.com