UXD: So we sent a spy to TechEd 09

<P>A user experience designer's TechEd diary - creatives and coders in harmony.</P>

It’s likely that by now you will have heard a fair amount about Microsoft’s impressive TechEd 2008 conference in Auckland. The largest conference in NZ apparently! If not, we recommend you take a look through our blog to see how successful Intergen has been in providing numerous key speakers as well as hosting all of the official ‘Hands on Labs’ (Microsoft’s mini training sessions).

Something I happily noted right off the bat was a concerted push by Microsoft to highlight the value of user experience (UX) in the whole software + service approach. This was particularly impressive, I thought, given the focused developer-filled audience, typically a very UX-sceptical crowd. However, Microsoft minced no words in trying to underline the ‘Power of Choice’ for the user and the need to make that choice as easy and intuitive as possible. The Microsoft folks showed a frank, healthy interest in existing market successes and the iPhone was highlighted in the Web Futures panel and Usability talks as a shining example of getting user experience right.

In fact, there was an unusual amount of acceptance of Apple products, with the pointed use of a MacBook Pro laptop in the big screen Live Mesh video which set the stage for the keynote speech to start with. Plus Microsoft’s General Manager, along with a notable number of senior Microsoft staff, commenting candidly on stage about how they owned and used various Apple products, as well as their prized PC goods. There were a few gasps from the lingering die-hards in the audience, but being a jolly user of both PCs and Macs, I just felt a warm glow.

So, having expected a stonewall response to ‘competitors’ and certainly not expecting a decent UX push, this conference opened my eyes to a Microsoft which openly professes an understanding that our web future needs a broad outlook to match user expectation. The modern software + services focus is moving well beyond the mentality of closed fence environments to secure customers, with interconnectivity, interoperability, openness, standards and partner community all being specifically labelled as key to the Microsoft ecosystem.

All very, very good to hear, and, as ever, Intergen likes to get stuck right in to making it all happen now.

Creatives and coders in harmony

Although a relatively new set of Microsoft tools, the Expression Studio suite has already become an impressive addition to our Intergen arsenal. Picking on one product in particular (close to this author’s heart), Microsoft Expression Blend focuses on Windows Presentation Foundation desktop applications and Silverlight web applications, and tackles collaboration between creative designers and our code-based developers. Forever a hot issue for project managers across the globe... this product/tool looks to manage it very impressively.

 
In brief technical terms, all the visual elements created using Expression Blend are fully accessible as ‘XAML’ code and so can be easily integrated with the developer’s workflow (even directly with Visual Studio). In brief practical terms, this allows designers significant and even direct control over the visual and interactive experience throughout a project, without imposing on developer’s technical and database requirements.

In terms of designers and developers working in harmony, this is by far the best solution we (as designers and developers) have seen to date, as it cleanly allows both facets of design and production to focus on what they know, smoothly integrating to provide a higher quality solution and user experience.