http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/UX09.wmv
the ASP.NET MVC talk was also very interesting. MVC will live side-by-side with WebForms, and it gives a really clean (java) way to build test-driven web sites. it definitely has a future with us (it's in somewhat early beta now). you can watch or see slidedecks of it and others here:
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What's New in .NET 3.5, Rob Reylea, MSFT
- hardware-accelerated bitmap effects
- performance improvements
o cold-startup speed improvements of 15-40%
- easier install process
AOL Silverlight Mail Client Lessons Learner, AOL
- poorly attended, bad speakers, AOL irrelevant to this crowd even with ~50 million users
Silverlight 2.0, Karen Corby, MSFT
- design-ability improvements from 1.0
o user controls (encapsulation, re-use)
- derive from UserControl
o events at element level, as opposed to application level
o tabbing works automatically (like it does in html)
- custom controls - derive from Control
o use generic.xaml to specify style and template
- Parts Model for template support (override visual tree) - easy way for template designer t o say "these are the parts i'm expecting"
o ElementParts
§ Named elements in template
o StatesParts
§ Storyboard that controls the parts
o specify [TemplatePart()] attributes for each parts element
- Blend 2.5 has built-in support to build UserControls from selected set of controls
Steve Ballmer Keynote
- he's crazy and he loves developers
- silverlight is part of msft's long-term vision of web/desktop fusion
o 1.5 million silverlight downloads (did he say per day? possible?)
- in response to msft's diversity of businesses: you either broaden or you become irrelevant
- heathfall -> msft investment in healthcare
Social Networks, panel with Garret Camp (msft live) Marc Canter, Allen Hurff (MySpace), David Morin (business sn), someone from Facebook
- openId - relies on URL, not consumer friendly
o major players (facebook, msft live) are watching, but not adopting
- facebook charges $.50/app install
- privacy is the biggest issue, bigger than security and pedophiles
- lack of data portability is major issue, users need to preserve anonymity at times and share data across the web at other times
- 4/10,000 click through an ad
ASP.NET MVC, Scott Hanselman, MSFT
- implemented using HttpHandlers and HttpModules
- release expected later this year/early next
- side-by-side with WebForms
o more control over <html> output
o makes possible unit testing and test-driven development
o SEO and REST friendly url structures
o ideal separation of tiers
- request engine
o "route" is determined (routes specified in Application_Start) from specified URL (by default "/Controller/Action")
§ routing engine handles friendly url parsing and is decoupled from MVC
o controller method is invoked
o controller optionally talks to model
o controller passes off something to view
o view knows what its getting and how to render it
§ view can spit out html (WebForm, xslt, etc.), rss, json, etc.
§ view engine can be replaced (e.g. NHaml)
- to test controller, use empty view engine that implement IViewEngine
The Office Ribbon, Jensen Harris, MSFT (http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh)
- easily the best presentation of the conference
- lots of prototyping; can we buy time in the UI lab?
- small buttons close to cursor or large buttons far away
- side vs. top
o people felt more comfortable on top in testing
o fear that sidebar would devolve into scrolling list
- evaluate
o longitudinal visibility - usage over time (i.e. 2 months, not 2 hours)
o feature affinity - how people use things together
o command loops - eliminate tab switches
o get fresh eyes!
o eye tracking - heat map, gaze tracking
- ask users where they think items should go
o some features like header/footer had 50/50% split
- iterate!
o account for iteration in dev schedule
o 5 major revisions, 4 later in the cycle
- when is a ribbon appropriate?
o real estate tradeoff, so make sure to take other things out
o lots of commands
o galleries, visual representations of features
Next Gen User Interfaces with WPF, Electric Rain
- workflow, design, build
o workflow = goals, foundation
o research, prototype, functional not pretty
- avoid monolithic specs in favor of rapid prototyping
o developers ask for product design specification when needed
