With today’s emphasis on usability and appealing user interfaces, it’s more important than ever to prototype your applications. In this session, you’ll see how new tools in Blend 3 enable you to quickly create working prototypes that can provide a foundation for building the actual application. You’ll learn about SketchFlow, “Wiggly styles”, sample data, and you’ll see how you can create a prototype that allows you to easily gather user feedback. Finally, you’ll see how you can save hours and hours by using Blend 3’s spec generation tool.

Prerequisites:

Step 1: Computer Configuration

**For a step by step guide to preparing your computer for XAMLFest Online, view the walkthrough video posted here. We’ll be working with the soon-to-be-released Silverlight 3 beta + tools, during XamlFest Online, so there are 2 alternatives that you need to consider for configuration – they are:

Alternative #1 (Beta Configuration): Follow the instructions on http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight3/default.aspx to configure your machine. Please note that if you go this route, you will be able run Silverlight 2 applications, but you will not be able to build Silverlight 2 applications (unless you uninstall the beta stack and install the production stack.)

Alternative #2 (Production Configuration): Please install Visual Studio 2008 + Service Pack 1 if you have it available.

• You can download a trial copy of Visual Studio 2008 from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/products/cc268305.aspx

• You can download Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=FBEE1648-7106-44A7-9649-6D9F6D58056E&displaylang=en.  Please install Expression Blend 2 if you have it available.

• You can download a trial copy of Expression Blend 2 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5FF08106-B9F4-43CD-ABAD-4CC9D9C208D7&displaylang=en.  Please install Silverlight 2 and its tools for Visual Studio.

• You can download the Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=c22d6a7b-546f-4407-8ef6-d60c8ee221ed&displaylang=en

• You can download the Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EB9B5C48-BA2B-4C39-A1C3-135C60BBBE66&displaylang=en.  The presenters will point out to you where you need to work around Silverlight 3/Blend 3 features.

Step 2: Download Assets

**There are specific assets you will need to download in order to follow along during XAMLFest Online. The assets are posted here