What a ride this has been! This is what I and other more than 30 people from different companies have been working on together for the last 6 months: .toolbox.

A bit more than a week away from when we went live we already have around 2,500 students from 80+ countries around the world!

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook ad YouTube.

.toolbox is an online design training program where you will find two study tracks: Design Principles and Design Scenarios.  You can take the training, present evaluations, collect badges and share your status via Twitter and Facebook. Do you have what it takes to get the ultimate Design All-Star badge?!

Design Principles is all about learning how to do better UX and design in general. We have received HUGE number of requests for this type of content. You will find 12 modules on this track, each about an hour long so 12 good hours of UX lectures

Design Scenarios is all about learning how to use Expression Blend and the design aspects of Silverlight. We have 12 modules, each about an hour long. The evaluations will only cover what is on the video but in addition we’ve included assets and a guide where you can follow a hands on lab. Some of the mini apps we have in the school are: SketchFlow Prototyping, Music Mixer, Canvas, Games, Business, Avatar Creator, Weather and more…

Since we first released Expression Studio 1 and Silverlight 1 the need train developers and designers in the use of this new platform has been huge. Everyone knows how to use Flash or Photoshop but no one knew how to use Expression Blend. All this time Microsoft has been growing investment on Silverlight resources and building better websites with learning materials. These days passionate community members also drive amazing blogs where they share tips and tricks to use Expression Blend.

For a couple years I drove a program called Artist in Residence which invited designers to Microsoft to work with developers to learn Silverlight and Blend. I also did the internal Artist in Residence where dozens of Microsoft teams, from XBOX to Office, to Bing to MSN got trained in the use of Silverlight and Blend.

After all these interactions I realized we were reaching maturity level in the business where we needed to go broader and reach many more people. Even though having designers visiting us in the campus was unbelievably fun and one of the most memorable experience of working for Microsoft, you can only reach so many people that way. An online design training program was a better solution moving forward and so we came up with the idea of creating the .toolbox.

The .toolbox is a website that trains developers and designers, evaluates knowledge, awards badges for achievements and that then shares your status via Twitter or Facebook. We hired multiple companies to help us build this site: Avlade produced all the Design Scenarios modules. Archetype many of the mini apps you will build in the school. Fuel Industries created the whole website and also a couple of the mini apps. Template Monster provided 3 beautiful sample templates from their library. Internal Microsoft UX designers contributed to the creation of the Design Principles modules.

If you have any questions/comments about .toolbox drop me a comment here and if you run into issues while taking the training please post directly to the Expression Blend forum. Remember to label your questions with TOOLBOX and then you question.

The concept of creating vision videos to sell an idea has been around since there has been cameras and specially TVs. Just like today Microsoft publishes a Health future vision video, 50 years ago people were also pitching the “Hospital of the Future” or movies and documentaries were displaying how life would be like with future technology.

Portraying the future has always been a passion for humans. The “What comes next?” question drives many people of many backgrounds, from painters, designers, developers, engineers, politicians, stock brokers and of course gamblers. Video as a medium to communicate messages is very effective because it is so rich. Video offers moving images and sound that communicate ideas in a more tangible, digestible manner to people. Video does a better job in tricking people to think that what they are watching is “real” - “If I see it, hear it and makes sense then it should be real”… and if not real at least it is more “credible”.

So the question is why would only big corporations produce vision videos? The answer is NO!, everyone, all of us who are part of the IT industry, the Web… the UX and Design world… we should all see ourselves at the beginning of a new project for a client as a James Cameron or a George Lucas. Vision videos are for everyone. Vision videos do not have to be always thinking 50 years ahead… make vision videos 1 year head… 6 months ahead… 6 weeks ahead. Help your client visualize the future. There is  “magic” when someone (like you) are able to show your client where they will be in 6 months (after they hire YOU to design and develop their new website, business application, or mobile experience)… and yes, here comes the marketing pitch! Use SketchFlow! whoa! - did I just trick you into reading this whole blog post to finish with getting SketchFlow? if you are reading this, chances are I succeeded but no, seriously, there are many tools designers use to visualize the future… Adobe After Effects is a great tool to produce videos with effects and a lot of agencies use it. It is not a prototyping tool per se but people use it for visualization. I call it “the Photoshop of video”. Mastering AfterEffects is not easy though. Also lot of people use Powerpoint! yes, slides with animations to communicate how the final application or website will look like - the vision of the future… well, I think you will also find that Expression Blend and SketchFlow can help you create these future visions.  You can create animation easily and integrate images or graphics from Photoshop or Illustrator. You can integrate video and even simulate how your client’s experience will behave “in the future” by making this Silverlight-based vision interactive. Prototyping is about helping you visualize where you are going to and discover issues and opportunities before hand. The same principle of the power of video applies: the richer the medium is to communicate your message - like a future vision interactive prototype - the more engaging and charismatic your ideas will be for your client.

• Future vision videos and prototypes get people excited!
• You determine the timespan of your “vision” (e.g 50 years, 10 years, 1 year, 6 months or 6 weeks)
• Use different media to share your vision to your client. They will love it.

For example, check out this terrific vision of the future video that with INCREDIBLE detail described how life would be in the year 2000.

Thanks to everyone who filled out our Design Tools and Techniques Workshop for MIX10. Here are the results. I wanted to share with you as they show interesting trends on what people are interested in learning more related to Silverlight and Blend. The survey focused on the design/UX aspects of Silverlight. Note these numbers do not represent “coolness” levels per topic rather, they simply show what people are more interested in learning about. Here is an image of the full survey with the topics…

I hope this list helps book publishers, Silverlight community rockstars, training companies and us here in Microsoft to produce more content on the top rated topics. What do you think about this? Any other topics we could have included in the survey?

The Rating number shows the sum of points per topic. People rated topics with 1, 0, -1 (Like +, Like, Not Like). The Points number shows the positive sum of votes per topics 2, 1, 0 (Like +, Like, Not Like). Basically the first number, Rating dramatizes the different between love and hate per topic. 

In this small survey you will find the different topics that Archetype, Adam Kinney and I will be covering during the workshop. We have 3 areas we want to cover: 1) Design Concept 2) Interactive Design 3) UI Development.

Design Concept are activities you perform while capturing the needs of your customers and putting together that early concept that you can then sell to your client, get their approval and get started. This early concept needs to look great and communicate the UX vision you have for the client.

Interactive Design is about creating compelling, rich and engaging UIs. Learning more about Animation, Effects, Transitions and Controls in Expression Blend.

UI Development is about learning coding techniques to bring up your UIs to the next level in terms of interactivity and richness. From creating your own Behaviors, Controls, Layout panels to Pixels Shaders and exposing all these in a Expression Blend friendly manner for designers.

In this small survey you will find the different topics that Archetype, Adam Kinney and I will be covering during the workshop. We have 3 areas we want to cover at the MIX10 Design Tools and Techniques Workshop: 1) Design Concept 2) Interactive Design 3) UI Development.

Design Concept are activities you perform while capturing the needs of your customers and putting together that early concept that you can then sell to your client, get their approval and get started. This early concept needs to look great and communicate the UX vision you have for the client.

Interactive Design is about creating compelling, rich and engaging UIs. Learning more about Animation, Effects, Transitions and Controls in Expression Blend.

UI Development is about learning coding techniques to bring up your UIs to the next level in terms of interactivity and richness. From creating your own Behaviors, Controls, Layout panels to Pixels Shaders and exposing all these in a Expression Blend friendly manner for designers

Fill the survey… 

Leave me a comment if you are have more comments or ideas. Archetype is a tremendous agency who have done amazing work with Silverlight and Flash. They will be sharing with us real world tips and tricks on stage. The format of the workshop is not exactly a lab but we’ll assets you can use to follow along.

As part of the CRE8 Conference last week in Miami, August de los Reyes and I presented a collection of the cool videos, websites and customer stories. Here is a great list for you with the best of best in Silverlight and UX.

Should I add any other cool website, video or customer story about Silverlight and Microsoft UX? Leave me a comment and I’ll be happy to add to the list.

August de los Reyes, Director of UX for Surface and I just came back from cold Miami… yes cold! I had to use a sweater all the time - It was sunny though and beautiful. My first time in Miami. I can’t believe the color of the ocean there - it’s all emerald. I’m looking forward to going back sometime in the future, in summer with more time to go to the beach.

One thing that wasn’t cold at all was the warm reception we got from our partners at AGI Training and GOA. We had a great time with everyone during the event. Thank you to all attendees who where there during the event.

Continue reading the full article with 25 Inspiring Silverlight Websites, Videos and Customer Stories here…

August and I had the opportunity to participate in the CRE8 Conference and deliver the keynote. I belive the keynote was recorded but I wanted to share with you all the links of demos we showed during the keynote. I think you will find this list handy as a guide of what is possible with Silverlight. Most of these real websites are built with Silverlight 3 and Expression Blend 3. Now that Silverlight 4 and Expression Studio 4 are getting closer the kinds of things you will be able to create are even cooler - remember that with Silverlight we now get Microphone and Webcam support, better and easier business application features among many other features. For Expression Blend 4 we are still not sharing some of the good and upcoming news but it will definitely be the most exciting release ever.

We’ll talk more about this at MIX in Las Vegas.

Partner Case Study - D’Strict UX Studio in Korea

On March 14th, in the afternoon I will be hosting a pre-session called Design Tools and Techniques. We will design some mini-apps from scratch, all the way from sketching them, wireframing, prototyping and doing the final UI in Blend. I’ll provide more info on what we’ll be targeting but in the mean time check out these mini apps. These apps were created by Archetype, a terrific hybrid studio that gets design and development based in the San Francisco Bay area.

Which of these would you like us to design from scratch? Leave me your feedback. More info on this session coming soon.

http://archetype-inc.com/slminiapps/final/mixer/default.html

http://archetype-inc.com/slminiapps/final/canvas/default.html

http://archetype-inc.com/slminiapps/Final/recruit/TestPage.html

http://archetype-inc.com/slminiapps/rc/movies/TestPage.html

I received this message from Elwe the Lizzard Elf - I thought you would find it useful (it’s about a big discount on Expression Studio 3!!!) Ay caramba!

“If you are an elf like me who enjoys holidays because of the amazing, sometimes crazy discounts you find everywhere these days, from shiny new green hats, red shorts, elf curly shoes and those always nice stripe socks then the following deal is for you: Get a 30% OFF on Expression Studio. Offer ends this Monday, December 28th!

This offer is only for elves living in the US - Get it now and get those Silverlight and Blend projects rollin’! - make Santa proud! “

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit Europe as part of the Microsoft REMIX Tour 2009. REMIX is basically the little brother (or sister) event of the Microsoft MIX event – …

On the last stop of the tour – Lisbon – I met a very interesting group of folks who call themselves Mix and Blend (check out their cool Silverlight site and their portfolio). Mix and Blend is the name of their design shop and they help software development companies with the creation of the user interface and user experience of software applications and websites using Expression Blend. “We do the Blend work for development companies who do not have designers in their teams,” said Sérgio Ferreira, CTO.

Talking to Mix and Blend put me in a Beach Boys mood. All the guys in this team were wearing a cool black t-shirt that said We Blend for You.

continue reading the full post here…

I know I know - I deserve a tomato (or two) in my face for not posting since Kawasaki’s talk in SxSW early this year. Man, blame Twitter! that little thing got me to feel I didn’t need to blog anymore as kind of satisfied my need to reach out to you guys and to be in connection but not anymore, no longer will Twitter be my darling - I’ll go back to blogging. Anyway, just so that you forgive me here are 20 top resources I send out to Microsofties and customers whenever they ask me: How do I get started with Blend? - In Microsoft I focus on the Design audience (Design audience meaning Developers, Designers, UX architects etc) who care about the design capabilities of Silverlight.

Here are what I consider the top 20 resources for you. Ping me if you notice I’ve missed something REALLY important but keep in mind this list is for the “Design” side of Silverlight only… which in my mind is basically Expression Blend.

To Get Started: 

1.       Go through the Starter Kits

2.       Go through the Full Course

3.       User Online Resources to get additional info and more tutorials

ONLINE RESOURCES

Download the Expression Blend Trial

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Blend_Overview.aspx

Get the Expression Blend for Free via the WebsiteSpark program!

http://www.microsoft.com/web/websitespark

Project Rosetta

http://visitmix.com/labs/rosetta

Silverlight Switch

http://www.silverlightswitch.com/

Nibbles Tutorials

http://www.nibblestutorials.net

Kirupa.com

http://www.kirupa.com/blend_silverlight

Expression Blend Team Blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/expression

Download Additional Behaviors – Community Gallery

http://is.gd/4NlY5

Dynamic Prototyping with SketchFlow in Expression Blend

http://www.dynamic-prototyping.com/sketchflow

Expression Community

http://expression.microsoft.com

Silverlight Community

http://www.silverlight.net

SilverZine

http://silverzine.com

Andy Beaulieu

http://www.andybeaulieu.com

Victor Gaudioso

http://victorgaudioso.wordpress.com/category/silverlight-video-tutorials

FULL COURSE

In this course you will learn all the basics to create Silverlight and Expression experiences. It is an end to end get started. It includes an almost 200 page mini book with exercises, reference material and explanations by American Graphics Institute instructors. It also includes a collection of assets that you will be using throughout the course. For more specialized training check out the Starter Kits below.

File 1 : Get Started with Silverlight - Full course > (100-200 level content)

http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/E/D/4ED9A068-7431-435A-8FD3-D7F6746998CF/Create_Silverlight_with_Expression_Blend_3_Course.zip

File 2: Service Pack 1 for the Get Started with Silverlight course – (you need this file in addition to the Full Course file)

http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/E/D/4ED9A068-7431-435A-8FD3-D7F6746998CF/Service_Pack01_Create_Silverlight_with_Expression_Blend_3_Course.zip

STARTER KITS

Silverlight

Introduction to Prototyping with Sketchflow in Expression Blend 3: Assets, Guide and Video Package

Discover Sketchflow, a new feature set in Expression Blend 3 that helps you define the concept for user experiences in early stages of the design process. From sketches to wireframes to protoypes of simple or high definition, Sketchflow provides you the right tools to communicate your ideas and gather feedback from others.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/4/9/A49AB02F-F035-402C-9B26-84860EEAF7DC/Prototyping_with_Sketchflow_StarterKit.zip

Creating a ColorSwatch Control in Expression Blend 3: Assets, Guide and Video Package

Victor Gaudioso and AGI Training take us on a tour to learn how to use a custom layout control like the Circular Panel to create fun and creative arrangements of objects in a List Box control. No longer Lists need to be linear and boring. You will learn how to customize this circular panel enabled Listbox to look like a Color Swatch control. This will help you reuse this control in your own projects easily.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/F/8/FF8B289E-7DC4-4FC5-BAB6-9464240923FA/Creating_a_ColorSwatch_with_ExpressionBlend3_StarterKit.zip

Venture into Gaming with Behaviors in Expression Blend 3: Assets, Guide and Video Package

Learn more about how to build a traditional “bricks” game using Expression Blend 3 Behaviors. Simply drag and drop Behaviors over objects in your artboard to easily add powerful and sophisticated functions like animation, physics, interactivity, data connection, effects and more. All without coding. The ever growing Behaviors Gallery at expression.microsoft.com is always avaialable for you to download new behaviors.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/1/C/11C8F2E2-711B-4581-A688-6B66DA4D1124/VentureIntoGaming_ExpressionBlend3_StarterKit.zip

Support for Silverlight in Expression Web 3: Assets, Guide, Video Package

Learn how to leverage the new and easy to use Silverlight support features in Expression Web 3. Using a template kindly provided by TemplateMonster.com, AGI Training will help you learn how to take your websites and publish them to an FTP location without having to leave Expression Web.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/B/9/8/B9874A4F-58F8-4D01-8E2F-E1DAC62ED4A3/SilverlightSupport_Web3_StarterKit.zip

For Integrators or UI Developers: Building a Product Website with Expression Blend 3: Assets and Guide

Christoph Schittko, Architect Evangelist for Microsoft has produced this amazing lab that will take you by the hand (metaphorically speaking J) and help you put together a Product website that leverages the new Perspective Transformation in Silverlight 3 to create a 3D based rotating Zune that you can customize choosing colours or tattoos.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/A/4/4A45D010-6152-4557-BAD9-62CC2040108F/BuildingZuneWebsite_ExpressionBlend3_StarterKit.zip

Expression Web

Discovering SuperPreview in Expression Web 3: Assets, Guide and Video Package

Learn more about SuperPreview, a new visual diagnostics tool in Expression Web 3. In this Starter Kit using a template kindly provided by TemplateMonster.com, you will be provided with detailed guidance on how to leverage SuperPreview to diagnose issues across multiple browser, all with full rendering fidelity and detailed control.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/3/4/F343C86B-FEE4-4448-8715-CA768BB305FE/ExpressionWeb3_SuperPreview_StarterKit.zip

Creating Standards Based Websites with Expression Web 3: Assets, Guide and Video Package

Learn how to produce beautiful and fully standards compliant websites with Expression Web 3 with this Starter Kit. Based on a template kindly provided by TemplateMonster.com, AGI Training gives us a tour on how to follow better practices to achieve W3C compliant HTML code.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/4/B/54B5B8F5-9B00-4D86-A185-7E315ED26A93/Standards_Based_Websites_with_Expression_Web3_StarterKit.zip

Here is a summary of this keynote session at SxSW. SxSW is over and it was an amazing event. Really outstanding results from the PhizzPop design challenge yesterday night. Will blog more about this soon but now let’s switch gears to MIX09… the clock is ticking… what is going to be announced? Follow this blog and me via twitter to get updates and get more info about all the new and amazing features that are about to be announced for our platform and tools at MIX09. You can’t miss it!

#sxswi end of keynote. Amazing session, fun… And “almost free”…

#sxswi Guy Kawasaki now charging for questions here at the keynote! Hilarious. Monetizing the “free”.

#sxswi question “why does YouTube doesn’t charge for premium contetnt? I’d be willing to pay”.CA “u get premium content at hulu.com and free

#sxswi CA re: economical crisis “how does crisis change free?” people are not as “dis-empowered” this time…

#sxswi GK “people fear losing something they have or fear of not getting something they want?” CA “FREE doesn’t frustrate,no fear,no scary”

#sxswi GK “free is free. One penny is not free”… How come “1 penny” cost be perceived so different from totally free, 0 pennies.

#sxswi this business models apply to “online” digital services… How would this work with analogous business? Like Starbucks?”

#sxswi Kawasaki “why not give your book for free to ur Tweeter followers?”… Good idea to provide value to ur “fans”

#sxswi CA”writers/publish companies might have a similar relation and future to what is happening on the music industryrecord label/artist”

#sxswi CA re: what is harder, to achieve popularity or to monetize popularity “harder to monetize, tweeter facebook…help becoming popular”

#sxswi CA re: future for Wired “paper magazine still with long life. Online mag is instantaneous info. Both formats good”

#sxswi Chris Anderson (Wired) re: how can Tweeter make money? “free to consumers but charge companies who are making money out of Tweeter”

#sxswi is definitely not a “design” event but a ’start ups’ event. Lots of inspiring ideas to help u think out of the box

Hello!, here is a summary of the activities Microsoft will host during SxSW. Hope you can join us! lots of opportunities to talk about Expression, Silverlight, Windows Mobile, Web Standards. Lots of parties too :)  Also in the Microsoft Tradeshow booth you can play with our new Microsoft Interactive Canvas… a great way to play with a wall panel with screens that react to your actions.

And on Monday 7pm don’t forget to be there for the PhizzPop Design Challenge finals!

For a full listing of sessions and after hours events, please visit the following sites:

SXSW Sessions
Parties/Lounges  

You can also follow Microsofties using Twitter:

@wtschumy | Will Tschumy - UXE
@chrisbernard  | Chris Bernard - UXE
@shanemo | Shane Morris - UXE
@arturot | Arturo Toledo - Product Manager
@seanseven | Sean Seibel - UXE

These are our daily activities during SxSW Interactive:

10am-6pm | Fri - Tues |INTERACTION AREA | Microsoft Interaction Area
Convention Center, 4th Floor NW Corner

High traffic physical presence in the main corridor of the Convention Center that will highlight Silverlight and Surface demos (to include partner applications), a lounge area, and attendee surveys to include a plant a tree reforestation incentive along with a Website Named Desire Poster giveaway incentive.

1pm-6pm | Fri – Tues | LOUNGE | TechSet Blogger Lounge, Sponsored by Windows Mobile
Convention Center, Austin Suite, 3rd Floor

Area in which bloggers can crash and work. In addition to broadband, a video recording area for podcasters and video bloggers will be provided.

12pm-6pm | Sat - Mon | EXPO BOOTH | Visit us at the Microsoft Expo Booth!
Convention Center, Grand Ballroom

Visit  us at the SXSW Tradeshow Floor with Expression Studio, Live Search, Azure Services Platform (to include partner applications), and MSN demonstrations. Meet the experts, ask questions.

2pm-6pm | Fri - Mon | VIDEO GAMES | ScreenBurn Arcade: Video game element of SXSW Interactive.
Convention Center, 1st Floor

Brings together new media, music, film, and video games.

FRIDAY, March 13th

8pm - 10pm | PARTY | The Rat Pack, Sponsored by TechSet and Windows Mobile.
Belmont Lounge, 305 W. 6th Street

SATURDAY, March 14th

10am - 11am | PANEL | Is Privacy Dead or Just Very Confused? with Danah Boyd, Researcher, MSFT Research
Convention Center, Room A

While many assert that “privacy is dead,” the complex ways in which people try to control access and visibility suggest that it’s just very confused. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, let’s discuss people’s understanding and experiences of privacy and find ways to 2.0-ify it.

11:30 - 12:30am | PANEL | Microformats – A Quiet Revolution with Karsten Januszewski, MSFT Sr. Tech Evangelist
Convention Center, Room 10

Microformats are quietly changing the landscape of the web, achieving some of the original ideals of the “semantic web.” In the past year, we’ve seen increased adoption from web designers and popular web sites, improved browser support for microformats in both Firefox and IE, and search engines beginning to support microformats.  Come hear from the leaders who are driving these changes in the industry, and find out what the future holds for microformats.

3:30-4:30 | PANEL | Everything I Needed to Know About the Web I Learned from Feminism with Danah Boyd, Researcher, MSFT Research
Convention Center, Room 9

Feminism teaches “the personal is political” and the web shows that the personal is now public. Christmas newsletters and recipes are the social media of their time, and women are the key social nodes of our culture. In her comic and thought-provoking style, Heather Gold brings together 4 very different feminist and web thinkers to discuss what makes social networks strong and predict where they’re heading next online.

6pm-8pm | PARTY | SXSW Interactive Opening Happy Hour hosted by Razorfish
The Madison, 307 W. 5th Street

8pm-11pm | PARTY: SxSW Interactive Opening Party hosted by frog design
Mexican American Cultural Center, 600 River Street

Official kickoff of the 16th year of SXSW Interactive

SUNDAY, March 15th

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Violating the Warranty on Your Touch Computing Device with Chris Bernard, MSFT UXE
Convention Center, Room 10

Simple touch computing is taking the world by storm in desktop, mobile, and environmental computing. The best and brightest are taking their gloves off, drawing inspiration from Star Wars to James Bond, and going beyond the conventional bounds of touch computing. See what design and technology leaders are doing next with technology like Microsoft Surface and other touch computer platforms.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Taking Responsibility for the Quality of Your Life with Brian Yeung, MSFT Design Strategist
Convention Center, Room 5C

How can we live so that things that drive us to be great don’t have to make us miserable every step of the way, and that the way in which we make great things can also make us happy in and of itself? This talk will discuss ways to think about goals, personal expectations, and boundaries, and how to take control of your own personal happiness.

2pm-3pm | PANEL | CSS3: What’s Now, What’s New and What’s Not? with Sylvain Galineau, MSFT PM; Chris Wilson, MSFT IE Principal PM
Convention Center, Room 8

This panel explores how major browsers implement CSS3. The focus is on finding effective and efficient methods for developers to unleash their creativity while maintaining cross-browser compatibility. The panel covers current implementations, future plans from the major browser vendors and some discussion of the current progress on the standard itself.

2pm-3pm | KEYNOTE | Nate Silver, fivethirtyeight.com interviewed by Steve Baker, Business Week
Convention Center, Room A

9am-11am | PARTY | FG Squared Party
Lucky Lounge, 209 W. 5th Street

Gathering of influential interactive marketers

MONDAY, March 16th

10am-4pm | START UPS | SXSW Accelerator, sponsored by BizSpark
Hilton Downtown, 500 E. 4th Street

Pitch competition featuring 16 top startups and showcasing some of the Web’s most exciting new innovations.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Browser Wars III: The Platform Wins with Chris Wilson, MSFT IE Principal PM
Convention Center, Room Hilton C

We’re doing *so darn much* with the Web platform these days, from cross-domain access mechanisms to new drawing and graphics tools. But in the end, we still have to deal with different web browsers. This discussion brings the leads from Mozilla (Firefox), Microsoft (IE), Apple (Safari) and Opera (Opera) together for yet another incendiary discussion about the future of the web.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Entrepreneurship in the Belly of the Beast with Chris Bernard, MSFT UXE
Convention Center, Room 18 BCD

Small is beautiful at SXSW. From Getting Real to starting up, the ethos is largely anti-large corporation. This attitude overlooks one of the most satisfying professional accomplishments: doing your own thing while working for The Man. This presentation uses examples to offer strategies for making the corporation work for you.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | My Car is Talking to Me But What’s It Saying? with Jason Kriese, MSFT Autos UX PM
Convention Center, Room 9

We call it the 60 MPH User Interface. Challenges abound in designing multi-modal voice and touch interactive user experiences in the car, for directions, traffic, information and communication. Come learn guiding design principles, see examples from today and talk about the experience of tomorrow.

2pm-3pm | KEYNOTE | James Powderly, Graffiti Research Lab, interviewed by Virginia Heffernan, NYT Magazine
Convention Center, Room A

4pm-8pm | PARTY | Rackspace Cloud Lounge Party
Brush Square Park West Tent

BizSpark hosting partner sponsored party.

5:30-7pm | DEMOS | Sensorium: Exploring the Digital Universe with Next Generation Interfaces
Pangaea, 409 Colorado Street

Live demonstrations focused around how Microsoft is coupling computing hardware with software and Web services. Presented by Microsoft.

7pm-10pm | PhizzPop Design Challenge: Tour Finale
Pangaea, 409 Colorado Street

Register for FREE! Here…

Winning teams from each city present their applications in the final square off. Get more info here.

TUESDAY, March 17th

10am-11am | PANEL | Cloud Computing: Defending the Undefinable with Yousef Khalidi, MSFT Engineer
Convention Center, Room 8

The brave new world of cloud computing is radically changing how we build web applications. What is a platform, what is a service, and how will the future of web applications be built? More importantly, how do these various clouds compare, and what do the differences mean? Are they ready for your world-rockin’ startup? In this panel, we’ll get nerdy with technical details, you’ll yell at us, and we’ll argue why your app should already be in the cloud.

10am-11am | PANEL | Latino Digital Drive: Why this Audience Matters with Javier Farfan, MSFT Zune Sr. PM
Convention Center, Room Hilton A

An in-depth look at the growing Latin music market, why this demographic represents an alluring audience, who and how they should be targeted and in what language. What’s the secret and should there be an English crossover? More and more artists are noticing this community - even Beyonce singing in Spanish.

10am-11am | PANEL | Collabotition: Can Companies Work With Their Competitors with Niko Chauls, MSFT Managing Editor
Convention Center, Room A

Costless organization of people, ideas, and information has changed how we collaborate and compete. Social media companies that might be competitors are working together to beat each other; sharing gossip, using each other’s products and making the battle a bit more efficient. Will the cream rise to the top?

2pm-3pm | KEYNOTE | Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine; Guy Kawasaki, Garage Technology Ventures
Convention Center, Room A

3:30pm4:30pm | PANEL | Brave NUI World: The Fearless Future of Device Interaction with Kristen Alexander, MSFT Xbox
Convention Center, Room 9

Designers and engineers are focusing attention on the NUI - Natural User Interface. As computing becomes more powerful and ubiquitous, ways we interact with computing will shift from classic keyboard/mouse to natural intuitive interactions. NUIs present new opportunities and challenges, as they become the next wave of computer/human interaction design.

Hello!

One more drop of content. I’m heading to SxSW tomorrow morning and I’m expecting lots of folks will want to learn more about using DeepZoom Composer to create immersive photo experiences with the help of Silverlight. We have four videos right here that will help you create DeepZoom experiences in a snap. It is a 3 step process… very simple and you can get DeepZoom Composer for free here…

Mastering DeepZoom Composer Series - 6 videos (only 4 available below…) - We will publish the other two in the Expression Community site soon.

DOWNLOAD ZIP file > 58MB

1. Composing DeepZoom Layouts
2. Exporting to PhotoZoom
3. All About Exporting DeepZoom Composer Project
4. Inserting an DeepZoom Composer Project into an Expression Web website
5. Inserting a DeepZoom Project into an Expression Web website (coming soon)
6. Simple Manipulation of a DeepZoom Control with C# (coming soon)

Hello! We’ve published new training content for Expression called: Silverlight for Designers Getting Started Guide. This content is available in the Expression Community site.

This content includes a manual, assets and 11 videos. The content was produced by AGI (AQUENT). It’s very useful ‘getting started’ content created for designers. In summary this week we released two new Getting Started Guides, the Silverlight one I just mentioned and the Expression Web guide too…

Remember that we have tons of videos at microsoft.com/videos under the Expression Studio channel :)  Enjoy! and let me know what you think about the content. We are producing content permanently. If you feel like we missed a topic or you have a question about Blend or Web please send and we can answer.

These are the videos and topics available in this Guide: 

• What is Silverlight? An Overview (this video)
• Understanding and Working with XAML Code in Expression Blend
• Creating Vector-Based Artwork with Expression Design
• Applying Color and Effects to Projects using Expression Design
• Organizing Your Project using Layout Containers in Expression Blend
• Editing the Appearance of Your Project Items using Expression Blend
• Exploring the Objects and Timeline Task Pane in Expression Blend
• Customizing Silverlight Video Players using Expression Blend
• Optimizing Video for Silverlight Playback using Expression Encoder
• Adding Interactivity to Silverlight Projects using Expression Blend
• Publishing Silverlight Projects to the Web using Expression Blend

Hello! I just signed up to Twitter. Actually I did months ago but never used it. Now I want to get started. It seems pretty easy to use but still confused with the @reply or @ this or that not sure what it is… If you have tips let me know.

Follow me @ http://twitter.com/arturot

I will be using Twitter and this blog to broadcast from SxSW which is a massive event in Austin beginning next weekend. Microsoft, like many other software vendors and design industry professionals will be part of this over the weekend gathering where we will witness amazing sessions and meet tons of interesting and creative folks from all around the world. My friend Miguel Jimenez from Spain will be there, he is a gifted mind who understands Design and Development and is skillful with WPF and Silverlight. He traveled all the way from Spain to join us at Redmond for the MVP Summit (Most Valuable Professionals), then he rented a car and is currently driving from Seattle and all the way to Austin TX!… that a good few thousands of miles away!… Anyway… just like this guy, many others are heading down to Austin, TX. You can only imagine the energy that will be gathering down there.

Follow this blog and my Twitter if you want to get updated on what is happening in SxSW. There will be thousand’s of souls in there, twitting and blogging… me, I will focus on Microsoft UX updates as well as other cool things I get to see there.

My first rant in this blog: The only thing I really didn’t like about SxSW is its *terrible* website! man! for being a design conference, such a huge popular and amazing event the website is crap. When I signed up I felt I was going back to the early 90’s when no one knew anything about web design or usability… It was hard to sign up, steps through the process didn’t flow. The look and feel for the site is null. The site is so poor in its design, let alone the visual part, but the usability of it that I even think they did on purpose, may be they were trying to convey a message about, I don’t know, something. Less is more? but here less is less… May be they on purpose don’t want to make the site too prevalent? or stand out too much? Anyway, if it was for the website only and I was totally new to SxSW then I would think this was a low scale/cheap event. It is not, it is indeed the most important creative design gathering of the year. No doubt about it… I’m not saying I wanted “flashy” webpages with animation or effects, but there is just no readable concept in the usability or design or the site.

Lori and Patrick in the Expression Community site have just published a new Expression Web Starter Kit. This kit was produced by AQUENT and includes a reference booklet, assets and a collection of videos. Hope you enjoy!

Remember you can always download the videos or watch them full screen.

Very shortly we will publish another Starter Kit called Getting Started with Silverlight - for Designers.  The UI Design for Developers video series will also be made available in the Expression Community site soon.

Here are some goodies for you:

• AQUENT gave us a discount code ‘holytoledo’ which will give you a $50 discount.
• Also, AQUENT will give away a box of Expression Studio ($699 value) to the first 5 people who sign up to an event.  

Join an AQUENT seminar and learn more about designing Silverlight experiences with Expression Blend and other Expression tools. I reviewed their 3 day course in Redmond a few months ago when we hosted a pilot event. The event went great. They put together fun materials to go through. The theme for the course is creating a website and assets for an aquarium. You get to design some fun and wacky fish in Expression Design, you take those into Blend and they teach how to animate. You also build a video gallery with shark and other fish videos. You learn how to create and customize Silverlight controls and on the third day, mainly for designers you learn the basics of how to code in C# with fun activities like generating a new human race with code .

Here is the outline/curriculum for the course.

Our friends from AQUENT GRAPHICS INSTITUTE have been in the business of training designers for almost 15 years. Last year we began working with them to produce training content for us. Collaborating with such an amazing team of talented trainers who know how to talk to designers has paid of tremendously as they are helping us bridge the initial gap between designers who have previous experience with Flash and the new concepts now available in Expression Blend and Silverlight. They are also providing training to our internal Microsoft design community via events we call Expression Sessions. These events help us train our internal design team (Office, MS.COM, MSN, Game Studios, Live, Windows etc) in the use of Silverlight and Expression. In February AQUENT will visit Redmond to train our internal design teams once more, this time to provide a course called Coding for Designers which is a fun one day event where AQUENT will teach designers in a fun and creative way the basics of coding with C#. We are recording that day in video so I will share the videos soon after. Jennifer Smith and Fred Gerantabee will also be presenting at MIX, also covering a C# for Designers session so visit MIX. AQUENT is also the official training partner for PhizzPop both online and in person design challenges.

Anyway, going back to the seminar tour that AQUENT is running… you can visit their Seminar site and learn more about how to participate. It is a 3 Day course for designers (although UI Developers who are relatively new to Silverlight would also find it very useful). They are currently offering events in NY, Boston and LA but if you want them to visit you in other cities in the US or around the world just drop them an email.

Hello! Ok a while ago I mentioned we had produced a short video series with Total Training called UI Design for Developers. Total Training invited us to visit them at NY where they have their studios and with their help we produced these 13 video series with quick tips & tricks for non designers to learn more about design. This is something I officially consider Part I because teaching design takes longer than just 13 videos but I hope these help you to get a little deeper into design. The videos are produced using Expression Design but all the tips and tricks work with Expression Blend too. I am already working on Part II of these series which I’ll make available in the future.

Also if you want more info on design check out this amazing website that will take you way deeper into Colors. Janet has done an amazing job providing good resources there.

For colors don’t forget ColourLovers.com now supports downloadable color palettes in Silverlight, WPF and Expression Design friendly formats.

We will publish all this content in the Expression Community site, an amazing resource for Designers but as usual I couldn’t resist so I’m licking out the videos here in my blog. Enjoy!

1 - Principles of Design Series:  Learning about Balance using Expression Design
| Video | Assets|

2 - Principles of Design Series:  Learning about Rhythm using Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

3 - Principles of Design Series:  Learning about Emphasis using Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

4 - Principles of Design Series:  Learning about Symmetry and Asymmetry using Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

5 - Principles of Design Series:  Learning about Unity using Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

6 - Principles of Design Series:  Learning about Points, Lines, and Form using Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

7 - Choosing Colors to Complement Your User Interface with Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

8 - Experimenting with User Interface Colors with Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

9 - Creating Mosaic and Tiled Patterns using Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

10 - Learning to Create Icons using Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

11 - Creating a Sample Icon using Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

12 - Designing a Glassy Button using Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

13 - Applying Effects to Bitmap Images using Expression Design
| Video | Assets |

The amazing ColourLovers.com community has added a special section for you to download color palettes in WPF and Silverlight formats. You can the use these palettes in Expression Blend. This will help developers get access to a huge library of colors that simply look great! and will also help designers get more inspiration and save sometime by using these palettes as starting points for their own projects.

The ColourLovers.com community now allows you to download 3 new color palette formats (example):

• Expression Design Swatch
• WPF Resource Dictionary
• Silverlight XAML Resources

There is tons you can do with this so we’ve put together a tutorial | Word format | with all the details of how to search for colors in ColourLovers.com, how to download your palette and how to integrate in your Expression Design document, you WPF application or your Silverlight website in Expression Blend.

Studio Aiko, an amazing character design studio in Thailand kindly invited me to participate in her second Monster Party due on Christmas day 2008. You can go to the Monster Party and vote for your favorite character. The idea was to send a monster with christmas/winter theme. I decided to create Elwë the Lizzard. To get to it I got 3 sources of inspiration: 1) a sketch I had drawn a few months ago 2) a Lizzard (or some similar animal) and 3) Will Ferrell’s interpretation of an elf in his Elf movie. Very funny!

I created the entire character in Expression Design using the bezier pen, dynamic colors and effects. I also used a bit of Photoshop to create the furry feel in the coat and hat.

You can download the source Design file for Elwë the Lizzard here… I hope it helps you get some ideas on how to design characters or icons.

What do you get when you mix Will Ferrell’s Elf character with a lizard?

I had drawn this sketch a few months ago… I envisioned it as a little monster with little pointy teeth. I left it there in my sketchbook waiting for the right time to bring it to life.

When Aiko invited me to participate in the Monster Party No. 2 contest for Christmas I thought the original sketch would be great for a monster so scanned the sketch and then used Expression Design bezier pen to draw the outlines… Because this is a Christmas theme I had to dress up my monster with an elf looking suit. I got inspiration from Will Ferrell’s Elf character… he is so funny!

I then realized the eyes were cute but it didn’t really look like a monster or a lizzard so I change the eyes to be more lizzard looking. This kind of removed the cuteness of the character but I liked it more… I continued to add details using the bezier pen. You will also notice I added some surface curves around the head, body and legs which helped me keep track of perspective and angles much better…

Here I gave it the first color pass, just trying to determine the colors for different parts of the lizzard… it all felt too green! but lizzards are kind of green and Will’s suit is green so I decided to make it work somehow using only greens… the risk was for the result to end up looking all green making it hard to separate body from head and tail but the next stage (textures) helped a lot in achieving a good visual result even when it’s all green.

I started adding textures… I got a reptile skin image and applied it using the Screen Blending mode in Expression Design. This is a very subtle reptile skin texture which works well with this cartoon type of character. I loved the result. I played with Opacity to achieve the bumpiness of the reptile skin I wanted.

At the end I took my image into Photoshop and added the final details. I used the smear tool to create the furry look in the white collar and the hat. I then brough the image back into Expression Design and added the black outline to make the character stand out from the background. You can see Elwë the lizzard dancing in the Monster Party at: www.studioaiko.com/MonstersParty.html

Please visit Studio Aiko and vote for one of the many cool characters in the Monster Party.

Get a 50% discount on Expression Studio, Expression Blend and Expression Web when you visit the Microsoft Store in the United States. Let’s begin 2009 with good deals and since economy is a hot topic right now, check out this limited time offer to get Expression Studio, Blend and Web at 50% their original cost. Expression Studio is $349.95, Expression Blend is $249.95 and Expression Web is $149.95. This offer is available in the U.S.

Now, let me tell you why you want to buy either of these 3 products. First of all, Expression Studio includes both Expression Blend 2 plus Expression Web 2, so that is already the cost of it. In addition however you get 3 additional products when you buy Studio. You get Expression Design 2, Expression Media 2 and Expression Encoder 2. Basically with these $349.95 you get the full design tool studio from Microsoft that can help you create Standards Based Websites, (HTML, ASP.NET, PHP), Silverlight 2 websites, WPF Windows applications, manage digital assets, encode and prepare video for the web and create stunning graphics. My advice, get Expression Studio, it’s a great deal and you can always update to the next versions of Studio.

Get Expression Blend is you are interested only in creating Silverlight and WPF applications. For many of you this is the case but basically for $100 more (Expression Studio) you web four additional products: Expression Web, Expression Encoder, Expression Design and Expression Media (all of these in version 2 of course)

Get Expression Web by itself if you are a previous or current user of Dreamweaver, Frontpage or other HTML website design tool. With Expression Web you will be able to create professional websites for your business or personal use. From small information sites based on standards to fully enabled rich media websites, Expression Web will help you design html based websites.

Upgrades from version 1 to version 2 of Studio, Blend and Web are also 50% off so this is the right time to upgrade.