UX Confidential

Great UX is Everyone's Responsibility

This is why good user experience is the responsibility of EVERYONE involved in crafting software solutions. Designers, developers & testers MUST work in concert to ensure great UX. 

Killer fail: how Romney's broken Orca app cost him thousands of votes.

Another 28 Days With Windows Phone

It looks like I'll be spending another 28 days with Windows Phone thanks to Microsoft and Nokia!

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who came out for Code Mastery yesterday. There were a lot of great conversations and some genuine excitement around WIndows 8. Feel free to reach out and continue the conversation!

Window 8 Design Resources

Looking for some Windows 8 design resources? Luckily Microsoft has provided designers and developers a plethora of information. Here are a few to get you started.

Windows 8 UX Guidelines

Making Great Windows Store Apps

Design Assets for Windows Store apps

Code Mastery Is Coming To Chicago!

Windows 8 has been released to manufacturing so now is the perfect time to start thinking about bringing your own apps to Microsoft's next generation platform.

Join Magenic for Code Mastery Chicago on September 12 at Microsoft in Downers Grove for a day of informative presentations on development, data and design. Yours truly will be talking about "metro-fying" existing iOS and Android mobile apps to get them ready for Windows 8!

Registration is free!

Switching To Windows Phone

I’m switching to Windows Phone. For 28 days. Check out my new blog and follow my adventures! 

http://28dayswithwindowsphone.com/

Microsoft Design Unification

Microsoft's Steve Kaneko on design unification and the challenges of moving to Metro:

Silverlight 5 Available for Download Today!

Silverlight 5 is finally gone RTW and is available for download starting today. New features in Silverlight 5 include Hardware Decode of H.264 media, which provides a significant performance improvement with decoding of unprotected content using the GPU; Postscript Vector Printing to improve output quality and file size; and an improved graphics stack with 3D support that uses the XNA API on the Windows platform to gain low-level access to the GPU for drawing vertex shaders and low-level 3D primitives.

Head on over to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=149156 and download it now!

Using Expression Blend in Windows Phone Development

Join me at the Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group where I'll be discussing the ins and outs of Expression Blend over pizza and beer. I'll cover the fundamentals of the Blend UI, give an overview of SketchFlow and show how you can quickly and easily create beautiful experiences for Windows Phone with Metro.

The session will be held at the Illinois Technology Association on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at 5:30 PM. Please visit http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Windows-Phone-Developers to register.

Windows Phone Unleashed @ TechWeek

Don’t miss this opportunity to get hands on with Windows Phone and the new features coming in Windows Phone “Mango”. Get help developing apps from the Windows Phone experts! This is a “hands-on” Hackathon where you will learn how to build, scale and publish your Windows Phone apps from the Windows Phone and Windows Azure experts. If you are a beginner or even an expert Windows Phone developer, you should not miss this event. Click here to register.