Origin Interactive

The need

Microsoft POC to display their Multi-touch capabilities using WPF
Microsoft SA wanted to showcase their Multi-touch capabilities using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). So, they recruited a client, development partner and Origin Interactive to produce a mind blowing multi-touch Proof Of Concept that they could use to showcase Multi-touch capabilities within a Microsoft framework.

Create an intuitive and engaging Multi-touch application
One of the central objectives of the project was to showcase the advantages of working in Expression Blend, using Microsoft's Surface and WPF SDK toolkits to create an intuitive and engaging Multi-touch application. The application itself is a high-level account reporting system that allows a company/user to view the history of their financial data through highly interactive charts. User can control the level of detail viewed as well as filter by time period.

Give users a great multi touch experience
One of the challenges when designing for a multi-touch experience was to give the UI a sense of depth, and of a tangible impression. This influenced how the intended touch gestures would work differently to traditional systems. How would the controls visually suggest their touch-functionality? Would the interactions with the graphs involve gestures that are intuitive or ease of use? How would compartmentalizing a group of controls within a module or placing them in a separate control influence the touch experience?

What we did

The UI focused on interaction principles

Extending the Pastel brand to the multi-touch application posed it's own challenges when conceptualizing the UI. The visual design of the UI focused on interaction principles that determined how comfortably and instinctively users would interact with the application. Touch interactions have to be executed in a way that anticipates user responses, without eliminating the users' sense of control.

Enhance the experience and encourage an overall positive brand impression

As the experience itself had to exemplify the brand essence, convenience and sophistication of the Pastel 'My Business Online' service, we exceedingly focussed on the ease-of-use and overall experience of the application. An integral objective to this project was to demonstrate how the WPF touch technology could enhance the experience and encourage an overall positive brand impression.

Understood the capabilities of WPF, and Blend as a design tool

Ultimately, a substantial part of styling the graph was done by changing and adding to the existing XAML. Even though the solutions were often very simple, the XAML had to be specific. Obviously experience helped produce appropriate XAML efficiently, but this did require a much deeper understanding of the WPF and .NET frameworks than I think Microsoft tend to acknowledge in promoting Blend as a design tool.

Supported the dev team, communication was crucial

Supporting the dev team was one of the most crucial aspects of this project, and some of the greatest challenges revolved around this. Even though they were responsible for the implementation of the XAML, communication was crucial throughout all phases of the project. This ensured that the XAML we delivered was actually implementable (in the correct manor), done in accordance to the designs and resolved any issues which may have interfered with these objectives.

Behavioural visual recognition

Would the interaction with the graph involve gestures that are intuitive? How would compartmentalizing a group of controls in a module or placing them in a separate control influence the touch experience? Some of these considerations had to be revised during the integration of the designs into Blend, and the implementation of XAML into the application.

Data Visualization control functions of the Toolkit

Styling the chart presented a new challenge - using the WPF Toolkit, a collection of WPF features and components made available outside of the standard .NET Framework development cycle. Relevant to our application, the Data Visualization control functions of the Toolkit provide a powerful means of easily creating flexible style-able charts.

The Result

Planting the seeds of future relationships
Our relationship with Microsoft and other companies involved has continued to grow and evolve. Through this small piece of work we now continue to work with Microsoft and Softline Pastel to bring delightful digital experiences to their respective audiences.

We've definitely learned a lot from this project and therefore fell confident in taking on more challenging project that influence and improve users lives.

• Happy client
• We produced a cool WPF application
• We love seeing people interacting with the app
• We've learned a lot from the project
• We've formed an awesome relationship with Softline Pastel