The MossyBlog Times Archives 2007 - 2009 : Microsoft

Michael Bach and his Web Platform Installer Beta

scbarnes — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:04:00 GMT

I was roaming the hallways early today and Michael Bach (Product Manager for Web Platform) was grinning like a he was up to no good.

Given we're all working hard on the various efforts required for PDC, Silverlight RC0 etc I was wondering what he could possibly be happy about?

I asked him:

"wtf is up with you, do you need me to find work for you to do?"

With a smug response he retorts:

"..Nope, see unlike you my man, my product is out the door and it's getting some nice kudos already..."

I asked him what the hell he was on about and then he told me about this skunk works project he was part of. In that his team decided to package all the Web Platform bits into one action packed Installer.

To quote him:

The Microsoft Web Platform Installer Beta (Web PI) is a free tool that makes it simple to download and install the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform. It let’s developers quickly get started with building web applications using Silverlight, ASP.NET and MVC. The application installs .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, IIS7 and Extensions, IIS FastCGI, Visual Web Developer 2008, SQL Server 2008 Express, SQL Server Management Studio, ASP.NET MVC and Silverlight Tools

ahh he's grown, he's already in full marketing speak mode... It was just yesterday he sat before me in the interview process, starry eyed and keen to save the world one technology byte at a time. Yet, here he is already, months into the role and already shipping! - Upstart!

He's now my biggest competitor on the floor and Michael, you're going down buddy...down i say!.

You can get more info about this cool initiative from

http://www.microsoft.com/web

Game on... punk, game on.

Silverlight Offline Storage with LINQ.

scbarnes — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:21:15 GMT

I get asked a lot about what the .NET folks can bring to RIA, and the first thing I proudly say is the fact is they bring a lot of engineering maturity and given Silverlight compliments a lot of their existing knowledge, it is our bet that this will carry over into the runtime. An example of this, is the work Sriram and Offline Storage.

Sriram Balaji has put together an example of how one is able to roll your own Offline Storage using Silverlight and LINQ.

Check out his post here:

In previous article I talked about Offline Web applications and how local database storage is central to make this happen. In this article I will show you how to build a simple local database in Silverlight using Isolated Storage and LINQ.

http://infosysblogs.com/microsoft/2008/08/silverlight_offline_database_s.html#more

Nice work Sriram!

What do you mean all Silverlight.

scbarnes — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 10:25:52 GMT

There are times, when I see great things around Silverlight and this one site for me always seems to capture us at our best.

Great video, and from a great site..

http://www.microsoft.com/click/artandtechnology

SEO, Nothing changed.

scbarnes — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:01:00 GMT

Gilbert (one of the original guys behind prooving Silverlight + SEO) of had a great write-up outlining some depth thought around this whole SEO buzz that Adobe unleashed early this week.

http://bits.samiq.net/2008/07/seo-for-ria-status-few-days-later.html

I like this quote:

Microsoft has .XAML and the .XAP extensions, the second been just a zip file renamed; which pretty much are open for anyone to consume, crawl and index; all this available to the world from day 1. XAML at its end is XML and it remains XML once deployed (different to MXML that gets pre-compiled to AS3 and later to binary format for it to be published); which could allow savvy developers to XLST the markup to XHTML, provide a site map as per normal practices and best part, one the content owner, will have the chance to decide what the bot gets to see and what remains invisible.

The discussion put forward is at the end of the day, nothing has changed, the problems of yesterday still exist today and the part hat hits home for me, is the fact you don't need to hire a team of engineers to help you understand our formats - .xap and .xaml.

As for deep linking, same principals apply here for both Adobe and Microsoft; you still need to figure out how your end users move in and out of the solution you’ve built. This still requires a RIA Architect to decide how this composition comes together. Google is unlikely to automate this for us, as in the end this is what the sales pitch during this week has been.

Correct. Google isn't the magic bullet here, you still need to the same amount of work you did prior to Adobe's announcement(s). You still need to figure out how the various views/screens come together, how folks can bookmark (albeit Deep Link) to that point in time. Otherwise you will have as Gilbert outlines in this diagram:

In some cases this may work, in most RIA it's pretty much a case of "guess where I live" game.

I think this last quote summarises the state of play perfectly

The problem at hand still remains unsolved (so don't think on throwing that SWFObject nor the SWFAddress code away, just yet), all that happened really is Adobe took out some insurance to keep the .SWF extension relevant through the welcoming arms of Google and Yahoo!

Life on Microsoft Campus

scbarnes — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:15:00 GMT

It's been basically a month since I first moved into my office here on Microsoft campus and I both love and hate it here.

Geek Celebrities need their own star path

Life on campus can be really fun and it's kind of surreal to be sitting here at lunch time and seeing a lot of what I call the "Geek-Rockstars" walk by, some of which I remember 2 years ago watching on Channel 9 and Channel 10 thinking "man those folks must have a good life, how easy is that job..".

The people I meet here daily are amazing, the quality of brain power in this area is also just as amazing and not to mention the sheer size of this company within the Seattle area is truly the most amazing of all.

I remember driving my wife from the airport to the campus and she simply said "..You guys have way to much money, this is ridiculous.." and it did hit me just how big this company's HQ truly is.

Size isn't everything.

Size isn't everything though, there are some things that concern me overall and they are mostly around being to accessible to the corporate way of life.

In that, I can't go anywhere in Seattle without bumping into a Microsoftee in one way or another. This can be I guess good (as you kind of have this bird of feather approach to thinking) but at the same time it can also feel very "insulated" from the real world. I guess I'm used to seeing a shock look on peoples faces when I mention "I work for Microsoft", as back home it was quite rare and in my respects considered to be a "wow, you done good with your life Barnes" moment (hey I'm shallow, and I enjoyed that bit of ego boost).

Here it's basically - me too. Then the next thing you know you're basically talking shop.

Too close to home

I also find the overall campus is to close to home, in that I'm used to commuting 40mins each way to work for the past 15 years or so. Having it 10mins down the road depending on traffic does kind of unnerve me.

Reason? It's just to easy to go "oh I'll go in and do some work today because I'm bored." as at home with a 40min commute, you kind of weighed things up in terms of "Can I be bothered having a long drive in to do 1hrs work?". That and if you then opt to work from within your home office, having the kids constant hassle you to go outside and play does help nudge you in the right direction.

That's more personal work life balance though. I'm glad though Microsoft has enough abstraction layers in place to sort of hint that you should spend as less time at work as possible as this is the complete opposite to Google's line of thinking. I've got friends at Google whom have agreed that the whole "we have everything on campus" is too convenient and it basically almost encourages you to never leave the campus.

It all reminds me of that episode on The Simpsons.

There was an episode once where Homer Simpson ends up joining this new future community nuclear power plant facility, where it really is run by Scorpio (aka ORACLE's CEO clone) which is some mutation of a Anti-trust meets James Bond riff (episode titled: You only move twice)

Basically the story is that Homer and the family move to this super corporate environment and everything is taken care of by the company they work for, so much so Marge gets bored out of her brain as she's used to the work-hard, play-hard life style.

Microsoft can feel like that at times (not that it's bad, but just a little to well groomed). Having everything taken care of for you bar your own home is also quite appealing.

Like for example having our own entire private bus network which will pick you up from home every morning free is a life saver.

Don't take this as a complaint more of a Aussie guy trying to figure out how this entire culture works so that he can fit in.

Overall though life on campus is pretty damn good and its more fun to being able to get off my butt, walk over to the subject matter experts here at Microsoft, shout them to a coffee and learn from what they have to say vs emailing.

P.S

I've come to realise that living in the US you end up being insulated from the world. In that in Australia I come home, watch the 6pm news and it covers Local, National and World events. Here in the US its just so fragmented that its hard to see a snapshot of what the world is up to on any given day. Instead I've looked towards more the NY Times etc for that daily dose.

What do you want to talk about?

scbarnes — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:11:53 GMT

I just had a curious thought, what is it that you'd like me to talk about on this blog. In that, given I have access to various amount of information, people and technology within Microsoft (externally as well) - what is it you'd like me to discuss in depth?

In that I still notice a lot of folks hit my blog regarding Silverlight Controls, is there something about Silverlight that isn't be covered and you need more information on?

No question is stupid or off topic.

Getting around Microsoft campus in the future.

scbarnes — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:32:21 GMT

I stumbled upon this site, which basically sounds like it's a pitch to change the way we Microsoftee's get around Redmond campus. I love it's concept and wish it were being implemented, but I've not heard or seen anything that would indicate this being true.

Check out the site http://gettherefast.org/bettercampus.html or watch the video..

I’ve finished up at Microsoft and heading to PIXAR.

scbarnes — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:16:00 GMT

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was excited to be promoted to a Product Manager role on the Rich Client Platform Team (Silverlght/WPF). Well, whilst I was at SxSW I bumped into some folks at PIXAR whom I shared a few beers with.

Cut a long story short, I jokingly asked if there were any positions gong and they stated yes, with that I’ve had ongoing chats and decided to take my leap of faith and branch out into 3D modeling & animation with a new role as a Junior Creative Modeller.

Given its my core passion, I felt it was the right thing to do, and whilst I’ll miss my time here at Microsoft, I think one can all agree this is a company well worth exploring and you’re an idiot if you believe anything anyone blogs about on April first as clearly this is a fool’s day prank.

As if I’d leave a sweet role working with/on one of the hottest products on earth right now.... although PIXAR I am open to negotiation still heheheh.

I am now a Product Manager.

scbarnes — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:55:00 GMT

I've managed to worm my way into Microsoft Corp HQ, as a Product Manager (PM) on the Rich Client Platform team (Silverlight/WPF etc). This for me is a major step forward in my career, as whilst I've enjoyed being one of the first RIA Evangelist for Microsoft, I feel I can offer more impact via this new role than in the field. I will still in part Evangelise Microsoft's offering in the UX space.

What is a Product Manager?

It varies in definition depending on which company a PM works for and what Product(s) they hold in their portfolio. For me, to keep it simple is that I'll be looking to ensure products like Silverlight out-innovate the competitor, as that's my core intent.

Silverlight & WPF have enormous potential going forward, and I will now be apart of this new wave of Microsoft technologies.

What can I offer to this role..

I offer years of experience in this thing we call RIA firstly, but more to the point I have a wide range of technical skills as well as some basic marketing skills. I also have a design portion of the brain, so blending the entire pool together, well, I hope to offer a colourful amount of expertise to the job ahead and looking forward to seeing what level of impact I can make on the product.

Why change?

I'm going to be working with a lot of really smart people, folks whom I've spent the last year working with in a virtual sense. That alone is the strong motivator as I'll be standing on the shoulder of giants. The three that stand out the most though are Brad Becker, Brian Goldfarb and Pete Faraday. These three are insanely smart, much smarter than me and I'm keen to tap their collective brain power for good instead of evil ;)

Will I stop blogging?

No. In fact I'll have a more focused approach to my blogging and my new team are supportive of my blog going forward. Having a my ear, eyes and voice within the community is critical to the success of this new role.

What will be the direction of the content on my blog?

Still the same, I'll be keen to decompose RIA more so than ever. The market has framed the conversation today under the guise of RIA. I personally think RIA is the wrong worldview, but i don't have an accurate answer on what it should be. Suffice to say, RIA fits and you can call it "Bob" for all I care, provided people are keen to explore the rich experiences associated to RIA.

I'll be also looking to highlight UX within Microsoft more, as I have not only seen but met a lot of creative folks within Microsoft whom far exceed my understanding of UX - yet they go unnoticed. Now that I'm on Microsoft Corp campus, I'll be looking to devote some time unearthing them some more.

What about your current role?

No idea what will happen with it. There maybe a vacant position in Australia for the Evangelism team or they may not. It's entirely up to my peeps in the Oz Team to decide. I will be selling my assets locally, so anyone want a big screen TV? heh. The current team I work with are awesome, and can't think of anyone negative thing to say about them - honestly. At the time of writing this, there is no news about replacing my current role, but be sure to check out Microsoft Australia career page (as this will be the first place to advertise it no doubt - we hire on merit, not who you know).

You're in the US now? Customs allowed this?

Yes. Not sure I'm going to fully embrace Seattle's cold weather, but I'll give it an open chance. Did I mention I grew up most of my life in the Australian outback desert? I've made a lot of new friends in Redmond over the year, so I'm looking forward to listening to their wisdom about all things America (specifically hear Chuck & Frank's thoughts from time to time).

Where to from here?

Well, I have to pack my entire life into a shipping container for one. I'll have to put a lot of stuff in storage and lastly figure out which electrical goods are US friendly vs aren't.

I'm looking forward to moving to the other side of the world. It will be a grand adventure! - in a geeky way.

Now to pack for MIX 08 and SxSW

p.s

Nathan Rothlisberg gave me an awesome URL which I'll no doubt make a lot of use of: http://www.simplyoz.com (I can keep my Tim Tams!!!)

Silverlight, Valve and Microsoft Surface..

scbarnes — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:37:24 GMT

What a title, and yes they do have one thing in common.

Me...

I arrived on campus, a couple of weeks ago and pretty much spent most of my time meeting with lots of people from different teams throughout Microsoft. I mainly focused on the UX story overall, where are we heading and how long are we going to take to get there.

I hung out with the Silverlight folks, whom are bursting tell all their secrets on where it's going, how things are tracking and where it will end up, but sadly I can't share that with you - Note to self, stay away from beers for a while..

It was interesting to see how far Silverlight has gone from this time last year, to where it is today, and where it's heading tommorow. It's something I'm proud to be apart of that's for sure.

I can't wait for MIX08 when you're hopefully going to be amazed at how far we have truly come. I did manage to bump into Scott Guthrie couple of Sunday's ago and he showed me some snippets of what he's got planned, and was not only impressed with the approach but also how excited he was about it ( I mean come on, it's the Gu right - well VP-Gu now..).

I also got to meet Ian Ellison Taylor (General Manager) (Sorry Mike & Joe, you're both amazing but come on..) and he was telling me the story of Windows (he must get sick of that story), specifically the Start bar and how it came about. Fascinating story, and I'd love to share but not sure which parts are public and which aren't, so I'll stay this side of the legal line and simply say - what an amazing insight.

(You can watch an interview here that Dr Legend Sneath put together before my time.. http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=284474)

In Ian's building, I also walked past the Microsoft Surface table, and immediately sat down to play with it. It's an amazing toy to play with and I was surprised I not only got to play with it by myself but most simply walked passed as if it was some plant or permanent fixture... Building 10 folks are spoiled..

I accidentally left my ID badge on the table and by the time I caught a campus bus, I got an email from Peter Blois (Program Manager on the Expression Team) telling me he found it and immediately grabbed him for a coffee to see what's happening around Expression.

Again, can't say much but there is one feature where I was excited and guys like Peter are at the helm of making sure the code comes together around these sweet products (Peter basically never sleeps).

I also spent a lot of time with other entities within Microsoft, focused on RIA and there is movement within the beast!

Last week, I did manage to head across the road from where I was staying and visit a friend over at Valve Software (Makers of TeamFortress 2, Half Life etc). Robin Walker, gave me the 50c tour of Valve HQ and it was really cool to see how these folks put together some of the best games on earth - literally. I also got Robin's inside view of how TeamFortress came about, in that how it went form a "realistic" looking game to where it's today, in Team Fortress 2.

I did get to briefly meet Dhabih Sijun, one of the best Photoshop artists I've ever known, and it was interesting to see how his influence on the art helped change the way TeamFortress 2 looks today.

I meet with a lot of really exciting and interesting people from all backgrounds and different companies (Google, Amazon, Adobe etc) (Yes even had a beer with Ryan Stewart at Adobe).

It was a fun trip, and now I'm back in Australia (even though for 11 days and back to the US) I've come to the conclusion, I'm without doubt spoiled.

I am meeting legends in the industry and feel I am cheating somehow.

That being said, I'll have some personal news I'll announce soon, but suffice to say I'm both excited and terrified.

Special thanks to Mike Harsh & Joshua Allen for letting me hang out in their offices between meetings and stealing their network connection. Also to Brian Goldfarb and Brad Becker for their effort! :)

I now understand the metaphor of "standing on the shoulder of giants"

(The list of people I'd like to thank for their time is long, and thank you to those teams who not only invited me into their team meetings, but had also asked my counsel on their upcoming directions around their respective products. I felt overwhelmed and hopefully I didn't waste your time!)

Can't wait for MIX08, as it's going to be a crazy time and I cannot believe I landed in Brisbane this morning, flying to Sydney tomorrow and then coming back to pack for MIX08.. Qantas better suckup to my AMEX card heh.

p.s

Chuck and Frank are doing fine, they each have a window office and it shows they not only know where all the Microsoft bodies are buried, but also have the shovels.. (translation: In Microsoft it's apparently hard to get a window office and these two got them straight away - POWER People..POWER..).. so far my blog is briefly outranking Chuck's.. he seems to think my luck is about to change, but i think I'll have a trick or two up my sleeve :)

Something is being built...and I hope you RIA kids are watching...

scbarnes — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:09:13 GMT

I've been a busy little Microsoftee and have done a lot of interviews over the past few months with folks from all walks of life. I'm about to go live very soon with a project. What's the project? not telling until it's finished. I will give you a teaser though.

It's nothing I've seen done here at Microsoft before so what you are seeing is simply a quick video tease.

(Note: RSS Reading folks will need to come visit the website to see the video heh)

My first chat is with someone from the hollywood movie scene. His work has inspired...

Release date is in February.. but

If you have someone you want me to talk to about RIA, then by all means contact me.

* Update: 1/02/2007 *

I've now included a Flash version of the Video.

POC #1 - Project Harmony (pt1) (Silverlight & Flash)

scbarnes — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:18:00 GMT

I've been enjoying the overall experience of what Silverlight has to offer since I started with Microsoft back in January 07. That being said, I've often been an internal "goto" person at times for some Flash advice on behalf of Microsoft customers around the world.

In light of this, recently I also encountered a situation where a customer was looking to use both Silverlight and Flash together, something which I kind of gave a confused look at? (ie .. not because I wanted them to pick ours etc, but more to the point what was the root of the problem).

The problem was simply that they had deadline to meet, they wanted to retain the video in Windows Media format but were looking to use the GUI inside Flash as a base. Fair enough, this isn't a Zero Sum Game and we play well with others.

This isn't the first I've seen similar stories around this, but mostly its from Design shops around the world whom are keen to embrace Silverlight and Flash (fingers in both barrels) but are kind of skittish to start with (i.e. the assumption is really you have to pick a team, red vs blue).

Thus, I decided to put together this proof of concept, titled "Harmony". The project is quite extensive and I'll spend the next month dissecting it and talking about different cross-sections of how you as a designer & developer are able to produce compelling enriching experiences with Silverlight and that you can execute on your creative vision. The rest is simply semantics and bits/bolts.

In this first iteration of my Project "Harmony" I wanted to test to see how well the performance would be in the event one was to use 90% Silverlight and 10% flash. In that overlay Flash on top of Silverlight and see what happens.

The results speak for themselves, suffice to say that I really put in a lot of gratuitous animations in Silverlight to really try and break the performance overall.

You can view for yourself here:

http://www.demo.members.winisp.net/poc1/

(Note: Link Requires Silverlight 1.1 and Flash 9.x)

My Objectives for this first iteration was:

Objectives (v1.0)

Determine to see if Flash (Transparent windowless) degrades in performance in the event it sits on top of Silverlight.
Determine if PNG overlays impact the performance of the video whilst mixed with Flash.

Conclusion (v1.0)

I did see some performance degrading on both technologies, but that is mostly due to both making use of alpha transparency (I'm yet to meet a runtime of any brand that can withstand alpha transparency)
Working inside Flash & then crossing over to Visual Studio / Expression Blend is not for the feint hearted (I kept tripping up in C# vs AS3.0 scripting syntax hooks hehe - nothing against both technologies but its more of a mind map thing).

Highlights (v1.0)

Using PNG's a designer is capable of doing some interesting things to a graphical interface. In this case used a bullet that appears to not only be embedded into the TV Screen but also shatters it.

I also added the "bullets" in the top right corner as PNG overlay to also test how 2xOverlays inside the Video would perform.
Using Video Reflection within Silverlight, one is able to really bring home a gloss finish by giving it a "glass" effect (as we all know there isn't enough glass effects online
Using an infinite loop within Silverlight, I was able to create a "ambiance" feel to the UI by making two sets of images fade in/out underneath the Flash area and the Silverlight Video. This again, was to really see how the performance would go with a Silverlight animation underneath Flash.

Using Adobe Photoshop for the bitmap artwork, I stumbled upon a technique whereby if you take a photo, duplicate its layer and then apply "gussian blur" with 50% transparency it kind of gives this glow/ambiance effect commonly seen in most games today.

Silverlight (Video aside of course) handles its progressive loading of assets in a unique way, I'm yet to put my finger on it but I must look into this more as I expected the GUI to take much longer to load (as there aren't any preloaders in this design).
The Flash Slider (ie works like iTunes) was done reasonably quickly, and the code has already been ported to Silverlight suffice to say, it looks seamlessly integrated within the GUI and unless you don't have Silverlight or Flash installed, it would argueably be forgiven as being part of one technology not 2.

It's a small experiment at first, mainly to test the waters and see what holds together initially.

The walk away message here is simple, this isn't a Zero Sum Game firstly and I want to stress that the most. The other impact is that if you're keen to try Silverlight but aren't quite ready for that big leap, it's ok you can use both without penalties implied.

The last but most important of all, is prove your concepts initially. In that if you're looking to switch from using Flash (for whatever reason) and aren't bold enough to do the lock stock and barrel or aren't allowed to, that's ok. Establish some objectives initially, build a Proof of Concept (POC) and chip away at the idea, as you will no doubt learn both technologies limitations faster than any book can really teach you.

The secret of a truly successful RIA in my opinion is knowing the technologies limitations.

The next POC (pt2) I'll talk more about the JavaScript Bridge and how I was able to make the Thumbnail Slide load up the Video Playlist etc. I'm also putting together some Video Casts on not only how I made this but also will upload the code once I get it locked into Codeplex.com (open source). All code & design is hand-made by myself only.

(NOTE: This is a crude, raw POC and progress bars etc for both technologies aren't important for this initial purpose. They are coming, and I'll talk more about that later. Again, this is a POC so don't lock this down as some end to end final production grade solution).

(NOTE: I used Teamfortress 2 Artwork, because it's my favorite game at the moment, I have personal history with it and well, the Soldier video is by far the funniest game trailer I've seen in quite some time. Valve Software are legends in my book - My Steam ID is "[te] Skittlez")

Next: The "HOW" (Code Dump / VideoCast).

Related Post: Writing Proof of Concept RIA's

No Planes, No Conferences, No Meetings

scbarnes — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 14:14:16 GMT

I've been traveling quite a lot this year and meet with some amazing folks in the process. Well, my travel is up for this year and I'm looking forward to spending some much needed R&R at home with the family and get back to basics - coding some proof of concepts.

I've got a lot of projects I want to get out the door to illustrate the products we have on offer, but do so with a focus around RIA (whichever your terminology of choice).

What does this mean to readers of my blog? well expect to see less talk and more code coming forward, specifically around Silverlight and how it's capable of "..playing well with others.." (something we at times lose sight of).

In saying this, if you want something built as a proof of concept, send me a piece of email as I'm all ears and will look forward to ramping things up a little more around what's possible with the technology.

I'm also looking forward to revamping my blog, and moving it slowly over to Mossyblog.com as in order to show all some of the cool concepts I've been working on/off for the past year, I'll need to upload via a hosting environment that allows more than just "CSS overrides" (sorry, MSDN.com has restricted access for us employees).

Here's a sneak peak at Mossyblog.com so far:

Also, for those of you whom are interested, I've setup a Shared RSS Feed over at Google.com/Reader. The premise for this is I'll be blog-spotting if you will things of interest that have a focus around Microsoft, Adobe, Design, RIA and AJAX.

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/05747974255093491793

RIA: 10 Questions on Icon Design - I ask our Microsoft Design folks to respond.

scbarnes — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 06:08:58 GMT

I have an Icon fetish that is disturbingly wrong. In that I collect them, horde them and will happily spend Microsoft's good hard earned money on as many of them as I can find - if allowed.

Yet, what makes Icon's so special? in that why do they enhance an applications user interface to the point where it almost is lost without them. Why does Microsoft and Apple spend a lot of money and time ensuring that menu navigation and icon's are done in a manner that's not only attractive to the eye, but enhance a users experience?

Well, I decided to ask our UX folks, the same folks whom chose Icons for our operating systems, software applications and so on. I had one intent, to get to the bottom of this whole Icon business and more to see where Icon's can play a role in tomorrows RIA. RIA is going to embrace the icon market, something I have now doubt and so with this, onto the top 10 questions with Frank Bisono & Brittnie Hervey (UX demi-gods).

Top 10 Questions for the Icon Ninja's here at Microsoft.

Q1. What is an icon?, in that we all see them daily in software but what does the icon represent to the end user?

Brittnie: An icon represents an action a user will take.

Frank: For our purposes, an icon would be a graphical representation (small picture or object) for a file, application or command (action). For the end user it should be an easy way to quickly identify what product they are in and what action they could take on a given object.

Q2. When you choose an icon, what is the process that you go through in selecting the right one?

Brittnie: In Vista there is set usages for every icon that we define when created. We align the concept of the functionality the user is taking to the best visual representation we can get based on elements rather than words.

Frank: So generally you don’t just have the luxury of choosing a pre-existing icon here. For most products or features, we create a custom icon. On the server side, this means literally THOUSANDS of icons. We follow the same process as Brittnie described above. That generally means meeting with a PM and translating the description for this icon into a graphical representation. Sometimes we have existing elements that we re-use to create an icon, other times, it’s a completely custom concept and we start from scratch.

Q3. Microsoft has released some guidelines around designing icon's, do you feel that the icon design community adhere to these?

Brittnie: I believe it depends on group and situation. Our current guidelines do not map 1 to 1 to what MS sets as guidelines. I think we adhere when appropriate. This is a harder question to answer.

Frank: If you mean the design community OUTSIDE of Microsoft, well – it all depends. We haven’t put out the most robust set of guidelines I’ve seen, but they are generally a pretty good start. The main problem I have seen with regards to icons is that sometimes the importance of an icon is overlooked. There are the obvious visual aspects of creating an icon, but then there are also things to consider such as geopolitical issues that can come back to haunt a developer or studio. The last thing you want to do is insult a particular culture with the use of an icon that has a detrimental meaning to them. I’ve also seen updates to products that continue to use icons developed for an older platform like XP. If you are targeting your application to run in Vista, then you need to refresh the icons to match the visual style we have set for Vista (the aero style). The last thing I’ll note is that all too often I’ve seen folks take a shortcut and use an icon designed for use at say 256x256 and they scale it down to fit a 16x16 block. Or even worse, they upscale an icon. That just doesn’t fly. There are a number of reasons why you can’t just shrink an icon in Photoshop and call it a day, and the same goes for sizing an icon up. At the end of the day, it just doesn’t look good.

Q4. I've always said that the icon market is ripe for the picking giving the technology going forward, where do you foresee this market going and is there room for icons in formats such as XAML?

Brittnie: I foresee icons becoming less important and the UI itself becoming more self explanatory. With that being said I don’t think icons will ever go completely away, just less needed.

Frank: The icon market is definitely getting more advanced. We are now seeing icons as large as 512x512 directly in the UI and with much richer detail than ever. I totally see a future with dynamic icons that change as the application’s state changes. As the graphics engines in our OS get better, so too will the use of icons and the value they can bring to the OS or application. That’s just one example. As far as XAML, there’s definitely something to be said there as well. Right now if you take an icon created in Illustrator, you could export that as XAML and drop that right into code using Expression Blend. After all, a vector is nothing more than a mathematical computation rendered as a graphic right? But another way to drop that into XAML is by defining a brush in Blend with an icon image and then using that brush in Blend (this is for when you only have a bitmap icon for example). The “icon” does ok at scaling, but there is room for improvement using that technique. XAML is definitely going to present some interesting possibilities moving forward with WPF applications. We are still WAY early in defining that, but as we move more towards a WPF based environment, you will see more attention being given to XAML Icons.

Q5. I have an icon fetish, i just seem to store them, 1000's of them. Do you also have hordes of icons tucked away on your hard drive and what is it you look for in the design styles?

Brittnie: No, I do not have many different icons I store on my hard drive but we do have thousands tucked away on a sever/share. The design style is the same for all the icons we create, as we have the Vista guidelines we follow. I only collect those icons. J

Frank: Well, I’m not going to lie here, I am a total icon fanboi :) I literally have TENS of THOUSANDS of them hoarded away on my drives at home. I’ve been collecting them for years. I just love customizing my desktop and folders using custom icons.

Q6. OSX and Windows Vista have a unique design style to both, and lately the "Glass Effect" plays a role in design style(s). Why is this so? and do you have any thoughts on the next upcoming fashionable style?

Brittnie: I believe this is because it is a new visual style that you don’t see in a lot of places, and it gives the icons an extra bang. They feel more like a piece of art work then they do just a simple icon and glass adds some elegance. I can’t predict the next trend, but if I had to guess, I would think it would be a hybrid between the MSN style of icons and the current Vista style, giving a little less importance to the icon, and more importance to the UI.

Frank: Hmmm, the glass factor. Yeah, this is all the rage and trend lately, but I think we’ll see some evolution in the coming years. The glass thing is just a little too shiny and a little too frosty in places and I think you will start seeing that get toned down a bit. The big effect there is transparency. Like anything else though, too much is a bad thing. I would totally tell you what I think the next trend in icons will be, but I’d rather keep that a secret and let you see it when we release it.

Q7. What is the biggest mistake a developer or designer can do in choosing an Icon for their applications?

Brittnie: In our world they could use the icon incorrectly, which then breaks the users understanding of what that icon does. Windows, Windows Live, & IE all use the same library of icons so using them correctly helps the user to immediately identify what action is going to be taken when the icon is clicked, thus enhances the User experience. The second thing they could do wrong is size an icon up from a smaller file, pixilation then occurs in the image.

Frank: Totally in sync with Brittnie here. An example of using an icon incorrectly would be choosing an icon that has traditionally had a different metaphor to mean something else in your UI. This is BAD…REAL BAD. It’s hard to retrain people to think about something in a different way and if your use of an icon gives the user a result other than the intended result because of a bad metaphor, well then you just hosed the usability of your product. Metaphors in general can be a bad thing and should be avoided unless it is universally known. You have to think about localization here and what the icon could potentially mean in another culture.

Q8. What advice would you give to the design market around producing a set of icons? given that most software vendors require a themed approach?

Brittnie: I guess the advice I would give would depend on what style they were trying to create an icon in. If they were trying to create an icon in the Vista style I would say the most important thing to do is work closely with the library owner so they can understand what is already built, and how to visual represent something that needs to map into our icons, and to make sure the style guide is being followed.

Frank: For designers outside of MSFT, the #1 thing I’d say they need to know their target audience. Sounds stupid, but if none of your users are running Vista (which we all know they should right? J), then you shouldn’t be using the Aero theme for your icons or your UI will look like butt. This is where proper research comes into play. Know the limitations of your product. Think about WHERE the icon will be used, platform, form factor, etc. (mobile device or a huge honkin projection screen in a NOC center). Think about the environment in which your icon will be seen (potential lighting situations, types of display technology). We all like to think we are designing icons that will be used on a Windows box in a home or office environment, but the reality is that your icon could end up in a place you never expected it to. You have to think about a lot of factors when choosing the right design. Think ahead, anticipate the unexpected and ask a lot of questions.

Q9. Icon's typically have two states associated to them (eg: recycle bin, full/empty). Yet some (Audim on OSX for example) are now using animation to represent status change, what advice would you give around keeping that from getting out of hand?

Brittnie: I would say each situation needs to be addressed case by case. I avoid using animation or multiple states of icons unless there is a status to an icon that needs to be represented for its functionality. I think the cost of making second/third icons and the additional cost of animating those icons will keep us from doing it too often. That is usually where I push back from when an icon of this type is requested.

Frank: I would actually argue that it ISN’T typical for an icon to have 2 states. There are definitely times when this is the case however. Status change and animation are two separate things. You can have one without the other. I think that having status change is an effective way of providing feedback to a user for certain things. Animation is where things would tend to get out of control if not done correctly. In the case of an object that is synchronizing something or transferring data, I can see the value of adding animation to an icon because it’s representing that there is a task in progress. It’s live feedback letting the user know something is happening. But gratuitous animation for the sake of animation is where you start getting into the cheese factor. How long did those flaming .gifs and websites with music last back in 1995? Yeah…

Q10. Why can't we have a universal icon format that fits all platforms, devices and other digital surfaces.

Brittnie: I think it would be AMAZING to have all platforms support then same file type/format, but I don’t know if this would ever be possible considering the constraints on the web that don’t exist in the OS.

Frank: I also think that the idea of a universal icon format would be ideal. Unfortunately we live in a world where everyone wants to be king and nobody wants to concede to the other player. You can say that about almost any format on the market. Blue Ray vs. HD DVD / PDF vs. XPS / RAW vs. DNG, the list goes on. Then you have the issue of maintaining backwards compatibility and re-engineering existing apps to take advantage of a universal format. Then who owns it? I think people are just set in their ways and on the grand scheme of things, a universal icon format isn’t at the top of the list of priorities for most folks. It’s a shame really, but I guess that’s life in the 21^st century.

Conclusion

I think that there is going to be a very lucrative market ahead for Icon Designers, especially as RIA begins to heat up more and more as technology gets advanced. Themed Icon designers, and quality ones will be in high demand along side UI designers - in fact - one could argue that a good UI designer for applications should come in armed with Icon Design capabilities. As you can then complete the entire themed experience in a way that others may not be able to.

XAML, is also something in which I think there is going to be strong possibilities around, and the ability to transfer icons back and forth amongst designer & developer workflow will also work towards reduction of having to design icon's for different scales (16,32,48 etc).

This is also something which probably doesn't get discussed enough, in that Microsoft can offer a lot of maturity in this space going forward. We have exceptionally talented, intelligent and extremely focused User Experience folks on our payroll. I expect as time passes we will continue to see some of this thoughtleadership and maturity help shape the Microsoft Next Web strategy.

RIA isn't just about technology, it also needs maturity and leaders in this space.

More information on Microsoft Design, check out:
http://www.microsoft.com/design

Also we have icon design guideline(s) which others may find useful:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511280.aspx

New Silverlight Showcase (redesign).

scbarnes — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:55:03 GMT

Finally it's now online. The Silverlight folks have redesigned the showcase section of the site and it's purty. You can get the scoop on the story behind it at blog.lookorfeel.com

The previous Showcase had reached its breaking point and wasn’t scaling to keep up with all of the applications being developed. We architected an additive filtering system that disables any selections that would return an empty set of results — all of the filtering happens on the client side, not on the server. Microsoft was also very interested in highlighting the global reach of Silverlight, so countries and regions receive prominent display and filtering UI. Users can rate applications using a familiar rating paradigm.

The Story:
http://blog.lookorfeel.com/index.php/2007/10/18/new-project-silverlightnet-showcase-redesign/
The Showcase:
http://silverlight.net/Showcase/

One day at time folks, one day at a time :)