[Mini-Tutorial] Blend 3: SketchFlow Part I
Two years and an half ago, when I first joined Microsoft, we were getting ready to release Expression Studio 1. Expression Blend is a key product in the studio and works closely with Visual Studio. It was a great first step to support designers with visual tools to help them build rich interactive web and client. However, both Blend1 and Blend 2 were focused on supporting the final design within the production phrase. Much of the work designers do with in the ideation and early prototyping stages were not well supported.
The figure below illustrate a typical iterative design process, and the highlighted rectangle shows the final design phrase that Blend 1 & 2 supported. Many designers I talked to have this question: Would Blend support conceptual design and interaction design in the future and would it integrate with your Office suites? The answer is YES!
Blend 3 Beta was announced at MIX this year, and the SketchFlow demo generated lots of excitement among the designer community. After MIX, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on SketchFlow, and I know a lot of you are patiently waiting the release of Blend 3 which includes SketchFlow. So, l thought to record my learning experience with Blend as mini-tutorials to show you a number of things I found very useful as a designer. Hopefully, they’ll give you a quick start.
This is the first part of the SketchFlow tutorial includes topics on:
- managing Blend workspace for SketchFlow
- creating new screens in Flow Pane and link between them
- using sketch styles and integrating your sketches
- creating component screens that can be added to each screen
You can also download the video here.
