I have a music database I have been using for years for demos because lets face it, music data is a lot more engaging than tired old Northwind. The database I was using had been hacked together with some crude code that read MP3 metadata tags through some Windows APIs and a web service client that pulled down album art from Amazon. However it was write once/run once sort of code and I never got around to cleaning it up so others could generate their own database and not be stuck with the few albums I had data for in mine.

My buddy Tim recently used that database for a demo VSTO app he wrote and is demoing this week at the Office System Developer Conference, and he prodded me to update that utility code, so I finally got off my butt and did so (sorry it wasn't in time for your session buddy!). One decision I made was to not try to resurrect the code for using the Amazon Web Service directly. The problem with doing so is twofold. One problem is that unless you find an exact match on Artist and Album, it is hard to pull down the right album cover in an automated fashion without getting garbage. And unless the metadata is already up to date on your MP3 or WMV files, or you have been extremely disciplined with a folder convention matching the artist and album name, you are hosed for trying to do that matching. The other hitch is that to use the Amazon Web Service, you have to go register as a dev with them, get some IDs, and then make sure that you don't make more than one call per second to their web service.

I decided a better approach was to leverage embedded album covers in the MP3/WMV file metadata. That of course requires that your music files have those. So how do you get them there? You do what it says here and here. MediaMonkey is a great little app for updating the metadata of your music files, and it will pull down the album cover for you - one at a time. So it did take me a few hours one day that I was extremely brain dead and lazy and not feeling like doing anything remotely challenging to go through my hundreds of albums and get their album covers updated into the file. But that benefits you for Zune, iPod, Windows Media Player, and any other decent software that plays those files, so I have already found it well worth doing.

Once your music files have the album art in them, updating my utility became more of a one-stop shop. I just needed a library that would pull those tags out of the metadata for me. I found a nice one in CSID3Lib (http://sourceforge.net/projects/csid3lib). This made it a snap to load an MP3 file and suck the metadata out of it. Then a little LINQ to SQL sprinkled on and I have a decent little database generating tool.

You can find the source code for the database builder here. I also have a little WPF data app that demonstrates using the database here. There is a SQL script in the MusicDBBuilder project that you will need to run to create the database, but there is a command line switch that will do that for you. If you choose this, you will need to run once with the -c and master as the database connection string, then run again without the -c and the connection string to the new database, which will be named MusicLibrary based on the SQL script.

The project is currently configured in the debug command line parameters so that if you just run it in the debugger, it will create the database for you (or blow it away if it already existed and was not up to date).

You will need to go into the project properties and change the file path command line parameter to the root folder of wherever your music files live and change the connection strinig to the new database after the first run that creates the DB. It will recursively probe for music files, but will only read MP3 files in the current version. There is also a command line switch to turn off recursion and you can remove the -c if you just want it to add what it finds to the database instead of starting from scratch.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 5:35:14 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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I recorded a DNR TV episode back in December that took a little while to hit the site, but is up now. This episode walks through the data binding features of WPF and shows how to set up basic data binding, converters, work with data contexts and more.

http://www.dnrtv.com/default.aspx?showNum=101

Speaking

Thursday, February 07, 2008 9:22:47 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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We are very excited to announce that the legendary Dino Esposito has joined us as a member of IDesign. Dino is well known throughout the .NET community for his wonderful books, articles, and conference talks. He will be teaching a number of classes through IDesign as well as doing consulting with us. Later this year he will be launching a new .NET Design Patterns class as well.

We are honored to have Dino among our ranks!

Tuesday, February 05, 2008 1:58:35 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Dax Panhdi (who designed my blog and site, as well as many others) and I had a great email and IM conversation yesterday regarding differentiated UI. He adapted that into a great post on Differentiated UI and design here.

Definitely worth a read if you are moving into the WPF and Silverlight space.

Saturday, February 02, 2008 12:52:53 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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An article I wrote for Visual Studio Magazine just went live at http://visualstudiomagazine.com/features/article.aspx?editorialsid=2410

Check it out!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 11:52:33 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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A new buzzword that I hear more and more these days, particularly from Microsoft evangelists, is "differentiated user experience" or "differentiated UI". I'm even guilty of using this occasionally myself. And yet, it is one of those terms that often makes people cock their head like a dog that heard a human-inaudible screech.

We have been using it a lot this week, because I have been working with the patterns and practices team at Microsoft on the Composite WPF project, and we want to make sure that what gets built there accommodates a differentiated user experience.

So what does Differentiated UX mean? Given the context of most recent discussions on the subject, one would have to think that a non-differentiated UX would have to mean any kind of UI that came before WPF or Silverlight. But that is not really the case. In fact, it may not even exist now given that a quick search in Live or Google yields almost nothing for the search term “differentiated UX” or "differentiated UI".

I think the term Differentiated UX fits cleanly into a similar space as the term SOA – especially when the SOA term was first being thrown about as the future of software development without any clear definitions anyone could agree on (then or now) about what qualifies an architecture as service oriented. Those talking about the new buzzword seem to have a clear understanding of what they mean, but most are left wondering what they have in mind when they say that term.

Imparting what a differentiated UX is difficult because a lot of it amounts to dynamic graphical behaviors that cannot be statically captured with any fidelity in a written document like this. When I think of a differentiated UX application, I can’t help thinking of a quote I have heard a couple of times when visiting my father-in-law in Kentucky – “Y’all ain’t from around here, is ya?” (delivered with a wide variety of grammatical crimes against humanity). This quote captures that visceral sense that something is different about your experience than what you were expecting or what you are used to. I think that captures the essence of differentiated UX. It should not be a completely alien user experience. The user still needs to know or easily figure out how to get done what they need to get done. But the look, feel, and interaction may be considerably different than the way the same task would have been presented with preceding UI technologies. Usually that difference is that it is more dynamic in some way, including visual effects such as fading, highlighting, scaling, moving, etc.

I think one attribute that would make an application a differentiated UX application is when the application gives the user a unique experience in performing a task that is familiar to them. Another way of spinning the same functionality is to say that a differentiated UX exploits new UI technology to allow experienced or novice users to discover how to complete a particular task with greater ease. Another aspect that puts things into the differentiated UX space in my mind is when an application has a unique visual theme or branding that makes it really stand out, but in a non-obtrusive way, from other applications designed to perform the same tasks, and that makes it somehow more pleasant to look at or use.

A great example of differentiated UX available in the public domain is in the Family.Show reference application by Vertigo software (http://www.codeplex.com/familyshow). The assumed audience for the application is non-technical users who want to enter and track information about their family tree (a genealogy application). There have been dozens of small applications written for this purpose in the past, and most employed traditional UI controls including grids, list boxes, combo boxes, and text boxes to try to convey the potentially dense and hierarchical information contained in a family tree. Family.Show harnesses the ability of WPF to easily display rich 2D graphics (with additional features such as zoom and pan that are extremely easy to implement in WPF due to its vector graphics rendering engine) to show a family tree as just that – a 2D graphical interactive rendering of a family tree with vector representations of individuals in the tree, relationships, other adornments for peripheral information about the individual. The incremental cost of displaying information in this way in WPF if a fraction of the cost it would have taken to do this with Windows Forms, MFC, VB6, or even current web technologies (excluding Silverlight).

Additional information is presented not with traditional drill down dialogs or other UI that requires a distinct context switch for the user, but through rich content pop-ups and detail panels that slide out from a selected location, giving the user graceful transitions that are easier to follow and not get disoriented by the context switches in the application.

The Woodgrove Financial Application is another sample WPF application that demonstrates features I would say puts it into the realm of differentiated UI. Similar to Family.Show, it uses rich graphics (2D and 3D charts in this case) to depict data that would have often been presented with grids, list boxes, and text boxes in a typical line-of-business (LOB) application. It too features rich content pop ups (bar charts inside the tooltip shown, a zoomed view of the chart in the upper right when you hover over it, additional axis labeling in the 3D bar chart when you hover over data that represents a particular vertical market, etc.). All of those are also delivered leveraging WPF’s animation and transparency features to provide gradual, more intuitive transitions for the user so that even though there is a lot more information flying out of the screen at them in response to subtle user interactions, it does not become overwhelming or disorienting.

Another example I like to show that speaks of a differentiated UI is the Cine.View application by thirteen23.com, a WPF design company. Cine.View is a WPF smart client front end for the NetFlix web-based movie rental service. Although the choice of color gradient is a bit overwhelming, the application demonstrates a number of great styling capabilities of WPF that add the sense that this ain’t your typical smart client application anymore. They use a navigation-style WPF application with forward and back navigation like a browser, and use quite a bit of animation, transparency, and element styling to give a really distinctive application feel to something that could be quite mundane otherwise. An intelligent use of transparency and animation in simple things like presenting a drop down menu or transitioning between views can add a lot in terms of just making the user “like” the application.

While a lot of this may seem like just eye-candy, one has to be always cognizant of the impact a simple visceral coolness to an application compared to its competitors may have. I frequently work with customers ranging from internal corporate applications; to ISVs for major industry software including financial, insurance, and medical; to government contractors developing specialized applications for defense and management purposes. In all these arenas, there is always an aspect of sales to the success of the project. If the funding source (the VP of X in the corporate environment, the purchasing bank or insurance company in the ISV scenario, or the General with the budget to give the green light in the government arena) can look at an application for which they have no expertise to judge themselves, but immediately feel like it is impressive in some way (which usually manifests itself graphically first), then they are likely to chose that as the way forward.

Other examples I have encountered in industry (for which I do not have screen shots) include the following:

· Medical monitoring: An arena that used to require specialized, embedded applications to display real time graphical information about patient measurements and status can now be implemented using WPF. Not only does WPF enable rendering of the dynamic graphical displays, it allows tighter interactive integration of traditional (lists, fields, and grids) UI with the graphical displays.

· Maritime navigation simulation: Rendering of near-photo-realistic versions of vendor equipment such as dials, gauges, controls (steering, throttles), and other user interaction screens to directly model the experience for a particular vessel.

· Defense intelligence data visualization: Presentation of 2D graphical iconic views overlaid on 3D models for situational awareness, complete with user interaction with those graphical elements. Also in this same application, traditional grid-oriented presentation of data enhanced by WPF features (animation and styling) to provide contextual clues while merging different sets of data.

An interesting aspect of the concept of a differentiated UI that was brought up by an insightful student in a recent WPF class I was teaching. He observed that for years we have had design standards which dictated that menus and toolbars and status bars and grids and such were supposed to look a particular way and be in a particular place in your UI. And it was always a battle to get developers to conform to those, but eventually the tools started to make it easier to do those things out of the box. Now it seems the trend is to go in the other direction and to seek a differentiated UI – one that at least looks and feels different (and presumably better) than another app that does exactly the same thing. I think part of this is due to the realization that previous rigid design standards didn’t really make any applications considerably easier to use. Just because a menu item can be found in the expected location doesn’t mean you have any clue what will happen when you invoke it or what the side effects of that action may be. Somehow you have to put yourself into the eyes of the user, think like they will think, and find ways to present tasks to them in a way that will make sense and be easier to use. Putting overly restrictive stylistic constraints on the application designer in getting that done just goes in the wrong direction, so differentiated UI is definitive a swing of the pendulum in the other direction from rigid application UI design standards. Now many of the things those standards addressed, such as menu and toolbar actions, are presented directly in the context of what the user is doing through pop up tooltips and controls that present themselves so the user doesn't have to go far away in the UI to get done what they are doing.

So “differentiated UX” remains an ambiguous term at best. I think I know what it means when I hear it, because I have seen a number of examples that I think would qualify for that term, and have thought about what makes these applications different from the way they probably would have been written, appeared, and behaved had WPF not been available.

If you had to boil it down to a few key attributes, I would include the following:

• Application styling and UI features create a unique and distinctive look and feel for the application
• 2D and 3D graphics are leveraged to provide better data visualization that traditional forms over data controls
• Integrated data interaction across multiple different data views
• User context hints provide richer context clues for the user about what they are doing or what they should do next (rich content tooltips, animated attention grabbers for focus shifts, etc.)
• Location of user interface elements is less rigidly defined by the application shell, and may be completely in the control of the user. This may range from something as simple but important as dockable/floatable windows to a Microsoft Surface-like desktop metaphor where application ui widgets can be moved freeform around the screen by the user (Minority Report effect).
• The UI framework (WPF/Silverlight) supports defining these features with a minimum of code

So that's what Differentiated UX means to me. What does it mean to you? Is it worth having a buzzword to capture this essence or mojo that makes a WPF app different from what came before it? What are some experiences you would put into the "differentiated" space?

I suppose a Wikipedia entry is inevitable at some point, maybe this post and discussion can lead to that?

Monday, January 07, 2008 1:34:48 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Well, my wish came true, I've been renewed for another 2 year term as the Microsoft Regional Director of the Mid-Atlantic Region, as well as getting Microsoft MVP .NET Developer - Solution Architect for another year. I blogged about the RD program the other day. MVP has many of the same but also different benefits, so it is great to be part of both programs.

Here's looking forward to another year great year using, evangelizing, and providing feedback on Microsoft technologies!

Thursday, January 03, 2008 3:08:16 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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As we enter a new year, I look back on the last couple years being an RD an feel really lucky for the experience. I hope I will be lucky enough to be renewed this year for another two-year term. RD stands for Microsoft Regional Director. There are about 140 of us worldwide, and we are all external partners/individuals who have a strong presence in the developer or IT Pro community and strong relationships with our local Microsoft offices and/or product teams in Redmond. We help give focused feedback from the community to the product teams, and help evangelize new products to the community. We don't get paid for our efforts, but there are a lot of implicit and explicit benefits to being an RD.

I always tell people that the biggest advantage of being an RD is the direct association with the other RDs. The RD community contains most of the biggest and well respected names in the industry, and I feel honored to be lumped in with such a prestigious group. The association manifests itself through our internal RD email alias, in which we have awesome discussions about Microsoft and other technologies in a closed forum where we can speak our minds frankly, exchange a lot of ideas but also be heard by the product teams directly when relevant. The discussions range from the latest and upcoming technologies to devices to home electronics, but we try to keep it focused on things relevant to our roles as RDs. However, that braintrust can really come in handy when you are thinking about what new phone/music device/laptop/etc. to buy!

We also have a number of conference and industry events at which we gather each year so we get some direct contact with each other, and RDs welcome other RDs with open arms whenever they visit each others regions, even if they have never met in person. In the US, getting together with RD friends like Tim Huckaby, Richard Campbell, Carl Franklin, Stephen Forte, Andrew Brust, Pat Hynds, Mark Dunn, Kim Tripp, and so many others is always a treat. And of course my colleagues at IDesign Juval Lowy and Michele Leroux Bustamante are both RDs as well, and we actually don't get together that often ourselves except at some of these same events. Another excellent aspect is getting together with RDs in other countries on their home turf.

For example, last July I was in Norway doing some consulting and training, and was able to get together with Morty Abrahamsen for beers and dinner in Oslo. In addition to learning a lot about Norwegian culture, we of course talked a lot of geek talk and it was a great idea exchange as well.

This year I will be hitting Norway, Sweden, UK, and other countries, and hope to get together with my other RDs on those trips as well.

Other great parts of the RD program are the early insider access to new things that are coming from the developer division (my particular focus, but we get access to other arenas as well), direct interaction with product teams through focus groups and design reviews, and most of all, just the fact that they really seem to listen to the recommendations that we make.

So what does it mean for you? Well, you have access to this great pool of minds in several forms as well. If you haven't already checked it out, you should visit The Region. This is our community site and provides an aggregated view of the blogging that is being done by all the RDs. The posts added to that site are first reviewed to ensure they are technical in nature and nor personal posts. There are of course RSS and ATOM feeds to subscribe and know whenever an RD has put some more of their grey matter out for public display. There is also a calendar on the site, where you can learn about upcoming events that the RDs will be participating in. You can also determine there who your RDs are by region.

RDs speak at most major industry conferences, so you can attend their talks, and I guarantee you that you will get some of the best content at the conference. You can also often hook up with your RD through a local user group, and at major events like TechEd we have a community booth where you can come by, ask questions, network, and have fun.

I just thought it would be good to share some of this to increase awareness of the program since I frequently get asked about it.

Happy New Year!

Sunday, December 30, 2007 2:11:44 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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