PDXSLUG - 4/13 - Creating Great UX with Expression Blend
Hey guys, tomorrow the Portland Silverlight User Group (PDXSLUG) will be meeting at WebTrends. Corrina Black, a UX Designer on the Microsoft Developer Division team will be talking about how to create great user experiences with Expression Blend.
We build software products with certain features, and our competitors come along and include those same features. Eventually the only way we can distinguish ourselves from our competitors is by creating great user experiences. This is how the iPhone leapfrogged both Windows Mobile and the BlackBerry, and how the Xbox became the dominant gaming console.
IMHO, this session is a must-attend, regardless of whether you are a designer or a developer. And even if you don't use Microsoft tools, you can still benefit because creating a great UX is independent of platform (Adobe vs Microsoft vs Java vs Objective-C).
Hopefully I'll see you there.
WHAT: Portland Silverlight User Group - April Meeting
WHEN: Tuesday 04/13/2010
6:00 p.m. Pizza (by Vertigo)
6:30 p.m. Presentation
~9:00 p.m. Afterwards at TBD
WHERE: Webtrends (map)
851 SW 6th Ave.
Portland, OR 97204-1337
WHO: Corrina Black
Corrina Black grew up sketching pictures and cartoons, but didn’t turn to design until she discovered the Web and taught herself to design and code simple websites. She focused instinctively on user flow, interaction, and attractive solutions. Corrina is currently a UX Designer on the Microsoft Developer Division team. To broaden her impact, Corrina pursued a software engineering degree to combine with her passion for user experience design. For Corrina, user experience is what matters. A product that doesn’t solve a problem, is difficult to use, and doesn’t draw the user in, regardless of how amazing the technology, will fail.
TOPIC: Creating Great UX with Expression Blend
Corrina will do an intro to Blend and walkthrough the process of creating a great user experience; this will involve SketchFlow because detailing and iterating on user flow, layout, and animations and transitions prior to full-scale implementation is key to great UX design and this is done in tools like SketchFlow. She will also likely walkthrough the process of building a simple application in Blend to show the core functionality of Blend (maybe create a phone application).
Warmup - The Reactive Framework (Rx) in Silverlight
At the beginning of the meeting (6pm) our own Eric Sterling of Vertigo will be giving a short introduction to Rx. Have you had trouble writing asynchronous code (including unit testing code)? If so, Rx offers a compelling and syntactically attractive way of handling events.
Sponsors: While you are at it, consider visiting our Premium Sponsors that make these meetings possible:
