A few months ago I asked a question on Somasegar’s blog about the new Expression Web 3, specifically whether the UI would be getting updated to match the rest of the Expression suite.
Having downloaded Expression Web 3 this afternoon I can safely say one thing: Expression Web 3 definitely uses WPF. The screenshot below was taken using Snoop, a utility that lets you do 3D exploded views, and shows all the layers in the Expression Web UI.
This does not confirm whether Expression Web is using the same UI framework as Expression Blend, in the sense that a similar look and feel could be achieved independently, i.e. without the two teams working from a shared UI code base. It’s hard to pick out any UI elements that are definitively shared with Blend, except perhaps the tool windows. Without delving into the code, it’s my guess we are seeing the first steps of merging the UIs (perhaps some shared styles) but we do not have a unified code base yet. Another thing which is obvious: the finesse of Blend is certainly not yet present in Web – just witness the number of retro-fitted Win32-esque dialogs:
So what?
To explain why I am so interested in Expression Web’s UI we have to delve into the background of Expression…
It’s no secret that Expression Studio was never written from the ground up as suite of closely integrated tools. It was basically pulled together out of thin air when some marketing guy at Microsoft noticed they had a collection of upcoming software packages that could fall under a single “creative” banner. That banner was Expression.
OK, that’s the cynical explanation. 
Microsoft had a very good strategic reason to create a new design suite…
Microsoft had early realised the importance of having a large developer community. In fact today, the software ecosystem built around Windows is pretty much the cornerstone of Microsoft’s business.
But as time passed expectations of how software should look & feel began to sky rocket. With software, as with most things in life, sex sells – just look at Apple’s resurgence for proof of that. Software had finally become less about features, and more about usability, enjoyment and style (users want to experience “Delight” as Shane Morris likes to put it).
The problem is, the people with the skills to improve UX – well, basically they live and breath Adobe. While Microsoft owns massive developer mindshare it owns very little designer mindshare – both ingredients are required to build compelling applications these days. Microsoft needs to capture designer mindshare and get them comfortable using Expression suite.
Practice what you preach
The problem is: if your design tool looks/feels like a turd (e.g. Web 2), why is any designer going to take you seriously? And if a designer doesn’t take you seriously how will you gain designer mindshare? And without designer mindshare how can Microsoft win the UX battle?
They can’t. That’s why when you looked at previous versions of Expression suite there was definitely a bad smell left by the inconsistent UIs. This may be subtle to some people but it’s what UX is all about – you might have a a good software product, but if your supposed suite of applications clearly don’t share the same UI framework (or dialogs boxes look like they were lifted straight out of Windows 95!) you are going to be judged and punished by the market.
That’s why its good to see Expression Web move to WPF – it was the biggest eye sore in the suite. I should add that I am a very big fan of majority of Expression, in particular Blend’s UI. It’s just that when you are selling a tool for designers/creative’s you better make sure you practice what you preach because you will be judged very harshly. Considering the pressure that is on the Expression teams (again a big shout out to the amazing job done by Unni, Lutz Roeder etc on Blend) and the standards they have to live up to they have done reasonably well. Unfortunately in this market segment they simply cannot rest
Step in the right direction
For end-users, the eventual unification of Expression Studio into a single, compelling UI framework will do wonders for the Expression UX, increasing user productivity and hopefully growing Microsoft’s designer mindshare. For Microsoft it will allow them to develop the Expression suite more efficiently, meaning higher quality, more frequently released applications. It will also continue to demonstrate that Microsoft are serious about using their own technologies and that WPF is a viable.
As a random aside, I am hopeful that one day Microsoft decide to take Expression a step further, growing the suite to include a Photoshop- or Fireworks-like tool, and thus create some genuine competition in the moribund designer tool market; perhaps even break Adobes dominant position it has abused for so long (see prices they charge!). Whether you like Microsoft or not there is no doubt that competition in the creative suite market benefits us all.
#1 by Scott on September 13, 2009 - 12:25 am
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Horsepucky!
You are kidding, right? Designers don’t use Adobe design tools because they don’t “look like a turd.” They use Adobe design tools because they’re the best, most flexible, and most powerful tools in the business to get their jobs done. The idea that a professional designer might switch to Microsoft design tools because of their “kewl” interface is the most ludicrous crock I’ve heard in recent memory.
Have you ever actually used any Adobe design tools? Notice anything about the interface? Pretty much plain Jane mid-gray and white. In other words, much like the Expression Web 2 interface, before the geniuses decided to hose it and create that completely unusable and visually tiring EW3 light-black-on-black interface.
Besides Expression Web 2 and Expression Blend 2, I use the Adobe Design Premium Creative Suite 4. There is not one single application in the bunch that comes close to that horrid light-black-on-black interface that MS seems to think is so cool.
Instead of worrying about the coolth of the interface, Adobe has focused on usability, customizability, and integration between the tools in the suite. The usability of the tools has improved with each new generation of the suite, with improvements in the context-sensitive toolbars, flexibility in tools and panels layout, and other improvements in the “UX”.
Adobe’s tools allow the user to customize almost everything in the UI to their liking, and save those custom workspaces as named workspaces for recall. They even come with some predefined workspaces for the most common scenarios (e.g. Printing and Proofing, Web, Typography, Essentials, etc.). You can set up ypur own completely new UI or simply modify one of the supplied versions, then save it for future use.
Contrast this with, for example, Expression Web 3, where the very limited amount of customizability extant in previous versions has been removed. You can’t even customize the toolbars any more! You have one and only one choice of interface–the one it came with. You call this an improvement in the user experience?
The Adobe suite is also much more integrated than in previous versions. Round-tripping among Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Fireworks, and Dreamweaver is a piece of cake. This is an improvement that significantly affects productivity and that actually _matters_ to designers.
I’m not a Microsoft basher. I am an MCP who has used MS dev tools since VS98 Enterprise, and their office productivity tools since Office 97, and I have to say that I believe that in those spheres they unquestionably make the superlative tools in the marketplace.
But, I am also a realist, and as a user also of Adobe’s design tools, I can tell you that you are seriously deluding yourself if you believe that the interface in Expression Studio is going to lure designers away from Adobe tools. You will _only_ do that by producing a clearly superior tool for _getting_the_job_done_, not one that simply looks better in the eyes of MS designers.
And it has to be superior, too, not just equal. No one is going to throw away years of knowledge and experience in using Adobe tools unless the alternative is so clearly superior that they are convinced the time spent overcoming the learning curve will be repaid in significantly enhanced productivity. And that is the way it is, in the real world.
#2 by Jack on September 13, 2009 - 11:41 am
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Scott, thanks for the biggest/most thoughtful comment I will probably ever receive on this blog!
My point wasnt so much that a “cool” UI would make people switch, more that a good & consistent UI was necessary (but not sufficient) for the Expression tools to win designer mindshare. Unifiying all the Expression tools with the same WPF UI framework is a step in that direction.
Personally I would say that “UX” is a huge part of the attraction of Adobe tools. Yes the tools are the most mature, most featureful, but Adobe invest a serious amount of money in their UX: The UI refreshes they do (which are way more than reskins) are often quite radical. They probably do serious research into usability. They spent lots of time lovingly finishing their products with great icons, sexy little touches (right down to the box art). Their advertising is slick and cool. It’s all part of the package. It’s this package (“UX”) that I think really provides a huge attraction for designers.
And Microsoft has got a long way to go in regard to UX. My post was really just about one small step along that path.
By the sounds of it you are pretty pissed off about the regression in the Web 3 UI. You may well be right there (I have only starting using Web seriously since v3), but unfortunately, as is often the case, sometimes to move forward you need to take a few steps back (step forward = move to WPF, step back = regression in UI). I certainly don’t think Web 3 is likely to win any customers from Dreamweaver in it’s present state (features or UI).
Cheers,
Jack