Microsoft has posted an awesome collection of videos from a set of talks it had with partners and agencies called “Windows Phone Design Days”. These nicely complement and update previous video releases associated with MIX’10 and TechEd 2010.
This was a 1.5 day deep-dive into their inspiration, philosophy, goals, and down to the 9mm details on implementation. We recorded this event. The videos have not been edited, but this was such great content we are rushing for you to get it, below, please find links to the recordings.
If you are a developer or designer looking to target Windows Phone, this is a must-watch series. If you hold any kind of role related to software visual and interactive design, this should still be a great series for you to watch; you will get amazing insights into the research and the process that our teams go through to build stunning, award-winning experiences like the ones you have seen in Zune HD, and will see in Windows Phone.
Here’s what’s available:
Ana and Miles, the Windows Phone personas ( Tracey Lovejoy, 3:33 )
Tracey Lovejoy, Experience Researcher in Windows Phone team shares her research on Anna and Miles, the Life Maximizers who need a Windows Phone.
The Metro Design Language, the inspiration ( Jeff Fong, 29:48)
Jeff Fong, the Design lead for Windows Phone kicks-off Windows Phone design day with his overview of Metro.
Deconstructing a Windows Phone application part 1: Controls ( Rhon Manlapaz, Ryan Bickel, 17:40)
Rhon Manlapaz and Ryan Bickel deconstruct a Windows Phone application and show you how the core controls and interactions blend together to create beautiful, emotional experiences.
Deconstructing a Windows Phone application part2: Animation ( Jeff Arnold, 34:22 )
Jeff Arnold, Lead Motion Designer for Windows Phone uncovers the core animations and the principles behind motion on Windows Phone 7.
Deconstructing a Windows Phone application, part 3: Target Sizes ( Tirthankar Sengupta, 13:39 )
9 mm! According to Tirthankar Sengupta, that is the perfect target size for Windows phone apps. Tirthankar distills the target sizes for moble apps in this insightful video.
Deconstructing a Windows Phone application, part 4: Globalization (Ayman Raslan, Franklin Yow : 37:45 )
Ayman Raslan and Franklin Yow share an overview of internationalization and localization of Windows Phone applications.
Deconstructing a Windows Phone application, part 6: Perceived performance (19:45 )
A great user experience has to be responsive, this requires good application design and it also requires mastering the art of perceived performance: providing feedback to the user, and delighting her while she waits. Watch this video to get the guidelines for delightful, responsive user experiences on Windows Phone.
Designer insights into Panorama and Pivot ( Chad Roberts, Amy Alberts, 32:18)
Amy Alberts and Chad Roberts demistify and quickly get down to the escence of pivots and panoramas, the two pillars to building great Windows Phone applications.
Making Audio Sing on Windows Phone (Matthew Bennett, 34:26 )
Matthhew Bennett, Senior Sound & Sensory Designer on Windows Phone demonstrates how to create mobile audio that sings.
Windows Phone Voice ( Karen Kesler, 32:00 )
Karen Kesler shares amazing insights into the "voice" within Windows Phone. Voice is not speech, nor is it tone, you gotta watch this video to get it the way Karen does.
Designer Resources: Expression Blend Overview and Roadmap ( Celso Gomes, Peter Blois, 41:20 )
Celso Gomes and Peter Blois blaze their way through Expression Blend and demonstrate how to create amazing Windows phone apps using our Expression Suite. They also share the roadmap for Expression Blend for Windows Phone.
Designer Resources: Windows Phone Documentation ( Chris Kilbourn, 11:18 )
Chris Kilbourn, Senior Content Publisher for Windows Phone outlines all the documentation and guides available for Windows Phone designers.
Designer Resources: Windows Phone Design Templates ( Chad Roberts, 04:01 )
Chad Roberts drills through the red-lines and green-lines for the templates in the UX Design Guidelines for Windows Phone.
I heard the other day that Microsoft has decided to abandon most of their Office Outlook users by forcing them the move to the cloud. It was not so entertaining to listen to Paul and Leo, over at iTwit yuck, it up about all those fools who hadn’t moved up to the cloud by now. Yeah, right, imagine a conversion from Office Excel 2010 to VisiCalc and you’ll get a feel for what you’ll have to give up moving from Office Outlook to the offerings on the cloud.
This afternoon, I decided to look at this series to figure out if there would be a way to get there from Outlook.
Well, I gave up after the first 3½ minute video where I learned that the target audience is people from 25-50 who are cool. Yeah their featured archetype–a record store reject that is as dumb as a box of rocks who wants a Windows phone because, “Dude it looks pretty cool”.
I though Microsoft was serious about this phone. If they’re making this phone for Miles, I’m not so sure.
Moving to the cloud isn’t about being technologically trendy. This is the “right” way to do things. Eventually, it will simply be unavoidable. Windows Phone is simply one step in that direction.
I don’t mind moving to a different platform or the cloud as long as I can get similar or better functionality. With Outlook, I use a number of features that just don’t seem to be available in the cloud. A couple include nested folders in Mail. Outlook does it. Windows Live does it on the client side, not the cloud side. Hotmail doesn’t support them.
I keep a pending file of ebills. When one comes in (to the inbox) I edit the email and put the amount and due date on the subject line and save it to the Pending File. I glance at that folder and see what’s coming up by scanning the subject lines of the email. When one is paid (or scheduled) I move it to a sub folder of Paid items and leave it there a month or so.
Yesterday, I tried to do this on both Windows Live and Hotmail and couldn’t do it.
Yes, going forward is a good thing. Changing the way things are done may be better or at least ok. Taking significant steps backwards, however, is not a good thing.
I sorta agree, and sorta don’t I suppose. Since I use the outlook connector to live and sync my calendar up to the cloud it helps that I can then get that info from anywhere when I’m away.
The only real problem I have is the lack of task support, since I use Outlook for work more and more, I need that task/to-do synching. It’d have been great if the outlook connector added that in a update OR maybe the new live sync could add that support to the phone itself (I know that as of now it won’t sync from PC to phone), but this stuff should be there.
If I can sync from outlook right to my phone in some fashion that’d be a great option to have. Maybe MS can work out a “outlook” app in the office hub? It seems the mail app is, at this point, pretty simple/basic.
Paul,
What’s your gut feeling on Mac support come November?
My feeling is very good.
Zune Mac client maybe? That’d be like hell has froze over for many people I bet. But why not? I don’t see why MS didn’t have a mac Zune client early on anyways.
I wouldn’t expect a full Zune client.
Zune has widely been regarded as a failure, but its influence on Windows Phone 7 is unquestionable. If WM7 succeeds, the Zune UI team deserves a lot of credit and respect for it. IMHO, without the Zune, WM7 was not possible.
By the way, Paul, do you think WM7 will be useful for someone who is not into Facebook or Twitter and generally isn’t a big fan of social networking? I know you’ve talked about some missing features when it comes to email and calendars and Office apps, but do you know how they compare with the respective offerings from Apple and Google out of the box (or with apps installed)?
Yes. There’s a lot more going on in Windows Phone than just the social networking connection stuff.
Hey Paul I just had a thought about some of the missing features in WP7 such as no Messenger built in. We probably all assume that the Live team will just build a separate app for Messenger, but given the nature of how hubs work, could they instead build it into an existing hub as 3rd parties can? And given that it’s somewhat 1st party, couldn’t they even have more integration than 3rd parties?
I’m not sure the mail app counts as a hub, but as I see it, maybe they want to keep Messenger separate from the rest of the OS (sort of like the web browser) so that they can a) update outside of the normal OS update cycle but also b) have it as a choice, as some people may not want the messenger integration bloating their phone if they don’t use it (e.g., someone like me).
Any feelings on that?
My guess is they will build a standalone Messenger application.