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MIX10 is Microsoft’s conference for web designers and developers. This year’s event will be taking place in Las Vegas March 15th-17th giving “designers and developers the opportunity to learn about Microsoft’s broad web platform and tools that help bring together clients, servers, and cloud services needed for creating great rich web applications.”

Me and Kristi will be hopping on a plane on Sunday to represent the Plexipixel team. We’re excited to meet and interact with other folks to get some insight on the future of web, and the continually blurring boundaries between content, media and commerce.

Some stuff we’re excited about:

• More details on the Windows Phone 7 Series (aka “Vicky’s next phone”)
• Bill Buxton’s keynote – last year I made the whole studio sit and watch the video from Bill’s Day 1 keynote because it was so inspiring. I’m sure I won’t be disappointed this year, either.
• MIXOnline’s secret den – Matt and I had a Top Pot Donut break with Thomas Lewis, the Director of the MIXOnline team last week. Apparently, his team is creating a cozy get-away with custom furniture. If the design inspiration is anything like their limited edition MIXOnline Sketch Book, you know I’ll be happy.
• Karsten Januszewski’s session “Incarnate: Behind the Scenes” – We built the Incarnate WordPress Plug-in (with Andy’s amazing WordPress expertise) so of course we’ll be there to support Karsten—but especially because he’s a super nice guy and an awesome client.
• Silverlight Games for Mobile – That’s what the agenda says…

Some peeps we’ll be partying with:

• Josh Santangelo of Stimulant
• Jon Rooney
• Paul Sanford
• David Shadle
• March Rogers
• you?

Recently the Microsoft Silverlight marketing team called upon Plexipixel to redesign their pre-adoption site. After some intense collaboration and a great partnership with the Microsoft Silverlight marketing team, the Silverlight website (www.microsoft.com/silverlight) was launched on Monday. For those who are unfamiliar:

Silverlight is a powerful development platform for creating engaging, interactive user experiences for web, desktop, and mobile applications when online or offline.

With a wide audience of Designers, Developers, Media BDMs (Business Decision Makers), and ITDMs (Information Technology Decision Makers), we were tasked with a site that looked polished, but had serious substance. Through tight collaboration between our designers and developers, we nailed down a solid user experience flow for four different audiences, while building our concepts into a smooth, robust, and fluid experience.

We built a Silverlight showcase widget that highlights case studies supporting full HD video and an engaging implementation of Deep Zoom that is housed in a site that still serves up content for those without the plug-in. Both the widget and the main site content can be maintained easily from anywhere via our Azure CMS.

In the background, we made sure to enable deep linking within the widget and added robust tracking throughout the site to help the Marketing Team analyze traffic and inform future iterations.

Our team utilized SketchFlow as an interactive prototype tool which helped us get solid feedback early on in the design process and to control unexpected iteration costs during build.

The new site incorporates a multitude of technologies including:

• AJAX
• Silverlight
• Azure
• ASP.NET MVC 2
• IIS Smooth Streaming
• Deep Zoom
• Silverlight Media Framework

We are very excited about the partnership we’ve built with the Silverligtht team and are excited to be an active participant while the technology advances and grows.

Plexipixel has been recommended as a preferred developer for Applications on Facebook® and is now on the directory for Facebook’s Preferred Developer Consultant Program. The goal of this program is to connect people to the resources they need to build with Facebook products and technologies.

We are very excited to have our services recommended for designing applications on Facebook. Millions of Facebook users return to the site each day, providing unparalleled distribution potential for applications and the opportunity to build a business that is highly relevant to people’s lives. The selection was based on our previous Facebook integrations which include:

Social MSN Games: Hexic and Chess

MSN Games turned to Plexipixel to help them gain a foothold in the world of social. We brought Hexic to Facebook, while turning their instant messenger version of Chess into an asynchronous game for the site.

RoshamBOOM!

Built upon an existing game concept that the studio discovered online, our teams designed and developed RoshamBOOM! RoshamBOOM! was one of the very first Microsoft Silverlight games on Facebook.

We’re excited about being chosen as a preferred developer and look forward to collaborating with our clients on more fun, engaging new applications on Facebook. Stay tuned!

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

MIX Online is pleased to announce the launch of Incarnate for WordPress 1.2, the latest version of their fully customizable avatar management service. With help from the Plexipixel team MIX was able to resolve issues that emerged in the earlier versions of the Incarnate plug-in. Version 1.2 will now work as anticipated with most themes with no adjustment needed.

Mix had first enlisted Plexipixel to help them build the WordPress plug-in for Incarnate. Vicky Tamaru explains the steps we took to do this, as a contributor to the MIX Online web site, in her article, “A WordPress Plug-In for Incarnate.”

Visit the MIX website to see how easy to integrate Incarnate with your blog post comments by downloading and installing Incarnate for WordPress 1.2.

For those of you who have not yet heard of Incarnate it is a service, built by the Mix Online team, to make managing avatars easy. Incarnate searches the web to find and reuse your avatars, so you don’t have to upload a new one everytime you join a new service or want to leave a comment. According to the Mix Online website, “Incarnate is a REST-based service that uses peoples’ usernames to find their avatars on the web. To do this Incarnate queries Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Xbox Live, and Youtube.”

Incarnate is a fully customizable service that will fit seamlessly into your blog, but until recently was not yet integrated with WordPress. To solve this problem, Mix Online enlisted us to help them build a WordPress plug-in. Vicky Tamaru explains the steps we took to do this, as a contibutor to the Mix Online website, in her article “A WordPress Plug-In for Incarnate.”

If you like what you have heard see how easy it is to intergrate Incarnate with your blog post comments by downloading and installing the WordPress plug-in.

Here is a rare peak under the hood of the creative process behind our contribution to Zune: the game Sudoku. The game is available now as part of the Zune firmware update.

Challenges

As with all projects, there are a few parameters from the client and expectations for a successful product:

-    Create original art and assets for use with XNA development practices.
-    Work with Zune development team iteratively and remotely.
-    We would not be able to “preview” assets in real-time or use an emulator.
-    Design for localization (English, Spanish, German, French, etc).
-    Full traditional 9×9 grid and smaller mini 6×6 game play.

Wireframe

The objective of Sudoku is to fill a 9×9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine block regions contains the digits from 1 to 9 only once. The Zune team supplied a basic wireframe and a few game play suggestions. Playing Sudoku on paper is a consistent experience, but playing online varies widely – with very few conventions. We started our design process by playing some of these versions online and thinking about extrapolating behaviors to the Zune controls.

Visual Concepts

The visual design was our major contribution to the project. There are already quite a variety of themes already on the web, so we tried to develop 3 very different visual directions for the Zune team to consider. Giving the concepts names – “Telephone” “Tron” and “Japan” – not only made it easy, but instantly crystallized the inspiration. It’s a technique that we plan to move forward with in future visual explorations.

Refining the Direction

The Zune team went with “Japan” and we collaborated back and forth on elements of game play and adding a little more visual distinction to the game. This included developing the menu style, refining the commit/notes mode interaction and the mini game version. During this phase, we iterated closely with the Zune team on image production assets (or sprites) for the XNA development process.

We affectionately refer to the final look and feel as “Genghis Khan” or “Indiana Jones” It was rewarding to see it come out last November… and who knows, hopefully we will get the chance to do more games like Sudoku.

- T.

Roshamboom began with just another fun distracting link from Jesse. Someone had taken the time to create a game of Rock Paper Scissors using 101 different gestures. Its tag line was “The most terrifyingly complex game ever.”  It was displayed in a kind of chart of what beats what, so you and a nerdy friend could memorize the 101 gestures and 5,050 outcomes and intrigue and baffle everyone that sees you playing it…awesome. This reminded me of my quest to produce the most difficult maze in history. Ah, high school.

Around the same time Jesse introduced us to this game, we were having a much belated wrap-up on a project that didn’t sail so smoothly: designing and building a load of Silverlight controls. Nobody in the design department was familiar with building anything Silverlight, but we were confident and optimistic. Our positivity died painfully. While working on this project the tension in the design loft grew arms and legs and ran around stabbing us all in the side with thorns. We could also hear screams next door from the dev loft. The theme of the meeting was how to avoid this monster tension in the future, and we all decided it was best to make a Silverlight GAME! For FACEBOOK! Because there weren’t any yet and we’re THAT GOOD! I believe it was Andy that suggested we build “The most terrifyingly complex game ever” in Silverlight. It could have been Lisa. Everyone agreed. Yes, this was the solution to our chagrin.

I took another look at the RPS101 website, and found that the more I familiarized myself with it, the more impressive it was. The creator didn’t just figure out the game, he gave it real hilarity. The ridiculousness of “Paper covers Rock” was furthered 5,047 more times in ways like “Monkey flings poop at King,” and “Queen’s bosom is Mountain.” Genius!

Ian, Stephanie, and I had fun designing the controls and working out the functionality. Inspired by airplane safety information cards and the ViewMaster, we all came up with different screens and eventually married them all to create what is online now. I believe it was Matt that suggested we ask Lisa’s friend’s class of 2nd graders to draw some of the more appropriate gestures, which Stephanie used to design the ranking system.

We showed it to the creator, David C. Lovelace, and he had this to say:

“Roshamboom is awesome! Everyone at Plexipixel really did a great job with it. RPS-101 took a year to develop on my end, so I was impressed at how well its complexity was preserved in this very engaging, addictive new version. I like the “view all” functionality, the challenge history, and the interactive way it publishes match outcomes on your page. It’s just brilliant. I can finally play this game the way it was probably meant to be played — not even I can really be sure! — since I never expected anyone to actually remember all 101 throws, and certainly not all 5,050 non-tie outcomes!”

Hooray!

Interactive projects start innocently enough… a few wire-frames, examples of related functionality, some polished comps, maybe even a robust prototype or two. But the reality is that folks want to fast-forward to the end… and that is when the real work begins.

“You know… I will know when I see it, feel it, hear it and can play around with it. Then I can show it to a few others and let them do the same. Then I can give you feedback.”

You know what? They’re right.

You can call this Client-Doesn’t-Know-What-They-Want syndrome, but I prefer to use a phrase lifted from the 9/11 commission: “Failure of Imagination”. And it is a condition that affects everyone in the industry, whether designer, programmer, manager or client.

Historically, the technology has not been there to support this cut to the chase.

A console game needs character art, game play mechanics and level design before someone can “play around with it”. Ask any game developer, and they will admit they (or you) really don’t know if a game is fun or not until all the pieces are in place together.

In interactive design, tools and platforms such as Flash, Java Script, AJAX, Wordpress and Facebook offer the potential of near-instant feedback and execution.

As an interactive designer, I used to chalk it up to the world being impatient when a client wanted to see the final version right away. But then I realized – I am just as guilty. We designers don’t imagine – we try out 14 different color schemes or 22 ways to situate a 3rd party logo on the header. Then we show clients the best two options to choose from.

In my experience, I see the processes proposed early in the days of the internet dying out. Stepping clients through rigid or formal phases and methods is tedious, but also has a dangerous consequence – it ultimately may not serve the end product.

Let’s consider a practical example where you are the client: apartment hunting.

“Like New Unit. 1200 square feet, 2 bedrooms, great location and easy bus access.”

Ever looked for an apartment without seeing it? You feel blind no matter how much hard information is given without “checking it out” or experiencing it yourself firsthand. Before plunking your money down on that space, you want to know exactly “What it will feel like.”

So how do we face this challenge in the interactive world?

We can’t build apartments, townhouses and residences in every locale and possible configuration looking for the exact right fit.

I don’t have the silver bullet (I would love to hear your thoughts), but here are some initial ideas (and a few hard realities).

- Acknowledge Customers Always Expect More. We are a service industry… and like drive-thru espresso, high speed internet and call ahead restaurant reservations, (we as) consumers expect service to get quicker and better.

- Trust. This is earned and not given. I think most designers try to play this as a trump card, but I find it more effective as a gentle reminder: “You hired us for our talents, right? We’re in this with you together.”

- Don’t Ignore Steps. You may choose not to expose every scrap of an idea to the client, but trying to ignore things like project objectives to start working on visuals will always come back to bite you.

- Learn What Not To Do. As GIJoe would say… knowing is half the battle. Learning how NOT to repeat prior disastrous paths is step one in repeating success.

- Iteration. Personally, I have found this to be the most successful. I have worked with and under a number of processes (Agile, Scrum, Daily Check-ins, rapid prototyping frameworks, a combination of all of the above, etc.) In the end, it simply comes back to executing an idea and proving it works.

- T.

Following up on my post a few weeks ago — the new comedy sitcom In The Motherhood, based on the MSN web series that Plexipixel worked on the original site design and initial development for, is set to debut Thursday March 26 at 8/7c on ABC!

Mark your calendar, set your TiVo, and be ready to watch the first episode featuring hilarious stories inspired by real life viewer experiences.

Recently, the In the Motherhood web series was featured in a list of “14 hilariously effective online campaigns” on iMedia.

The people at Suave and Sprint are clearly much smarter than we were. Their “In the Motherhood” series generates millions of voluntary views, driven by the quality of the stories and the decidedly female POV. By humorizing the daily lives and situations mom faces, “In the Motherhood” rings the bell for brand relevance and fondness.

My Allbusiness.com blog post Xbox: Advertising Game-Changer? is being highlighted and syndicated across a number of sites including the SF Chronicle, CBS News, the Washington Post, and CareerBuilder. Cool… I just wish that the editing tools let me fix that ugly typo (and a few poor grammar choices made way too late at night).