Zhivko Dimitrov's blog

Skin Exchange Contest Winners

Zhivko Dimitrov — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 07:05:47 GMT

Our Community Skin Contest is over! A big thank you goes to all members who generously shared their skins with the rest of the community.

The winners of the Skin Exchange Contest, as voted by our community, are:

1st place - an Xbox and a free RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX + WinForms + Telerik Reporting license goes to Daniel Jonsson in Iceland for his D1040 RadControls Common Skin.

2nd place and a free RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX + WinForms + Telerik Reporting license goes to Miglena Nikolova from Bulgaria for her RadMenu Shade Skin.

3rd place and a free RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX license goes to David Hyde in the USA for his RadPanelbar OrangeCream Skin.

The source of all skins can be downloaded from the Skin Exchange Program page. Even though our contest is over, the program continues to be open for your submissions and we will continue rewarding all participants with telerik points.

50% more ASP.NET skins

Zhivko Dimitrov — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:28:31 GMT

�

A big thank you guys! Tribute to the generosity of you, our community, we now have 50% more skins available for the telerik ASP.NET components. Check out the latest additions in our Skins Exchange Program and feel free to download a copy for your project. Also, don't forget to�vote for your favorite community skin - we have an Xbox and free RadControls licenses waiting for the winners. Voting will close on September, 15th.

Once again, I would like to express our enormous gratitude to everyone who took the time to contribute their custom-made skins to the program. What started as a modest initiative with our last release is now, thanks to everyone, a truly useful resource for the whole community. The way you guys picked up the initiative felt particularly rewarding: it is as always amazing to see our community in action. We certainly hope the program will continue to evolve in the future with new additions of your custom skins.

Design Internship Program

Zhivko Dimitrov — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:12:23 GMT

http://internship.dreamture.net is the new blog of this summer's design intern at the UX department here in telerik, where�Dimitar Raykov will regularly upload his ongoing work on the weekly internship assignments. Following a successful attempt to accommodate an intern a couple of years ago, this summer we wanted to expand the effort with a program that gives not just a preview of an actual work environment, but also has a more academic side to it with a chance to experiment within the design practice. Before I laid out the program I did some research on existing programs elsewhere but failed to find usefully structured information, so I though I would share our experience online�to�help jumpstart�other professionals' efforts.

We separated the program in two parts - a part of the week the intern is involved with hands-on, real-life projects at Telerik, attending specification meetings, design critiques, and planning routines. This gives a chance to preview corporate culture, have a taste of team spirit work, and train responsible, accountable work ethics. The other part of the program gets more creative - each week Dimitar was given a brief to complete, targeting different design skills. This is the full program plan:

Objectives:
Introduce student to creative thinking and basic visual design concepts within the context of digital media. Offer a chance to experiment within all digital media genres and begin to formulate a personal artistic statement/direction.

Internship modules:
I. Creativity/Conceptual Thinking - 5 weeks
Challenges student to think outside the box. Evaluation of original ideas and creative concepts, not quality of design.

II. Visual Design Skills - 4 weeks
Introduction to basic visual design concepts and practical training.

�

I. Creativity/Conceptual Thinking
Weeks:
Day 1 - Design Map
Brief: list your top 5 design inspirations and/or influences. Find an object that represents the kind of design you want to be doing. Create a map that shows how your influences/inspirations link/lead to your goal.

Week 1 - Breaking the rules
Brief: Design a web-site/blog without the use of a computer
Outcomes: break with the computer as a medium, appreciate projects as messages that can be applied to other media equally well.

Week 2 - The empty photograph
Brief: Take a picture of an event that didn't happen
Outcomes: train creative thinking/observation. Introduce photography as a medium.

Week 3 - Designers as stars
Brief: publish a video online and get at least 2000 views by the end of next week
Outcomes: train creative thinking/ethnography research. Introduce video as a medium.

Week 4 - Interactive Architecture
Brief: think of ways to change the telerik office building so that it helps all employees understand better what User Experience is.
Outcomes: train creative thinking. Introduce interactivity as a medium.

Week 5 - Social Responsibility
Brief: choose an issue you want to support and find a way to raise awareness about it.
Outcomes:� train creative thinking. Introduce importance of social responsibility within work.

�

II. Visual Design Skills
Week 6 - layout
Brief: Design a personal web-site using layout to express happiness.
Outcomes: grasp the basics of layout theory/grids.

Week 7 - color theory
Brief: Design a personal web-site using color to express happiness.
Outcomes: grasp the basics of color theory.

Week 8 - typography
Brief: Design a personal web-site using type to express happiness.
Outcomes: grasp the basics of typography.

Week 9 - motion
Brief: Design a personal web-site using motion to express happiness.
Outcomes: grasp the basics of motion theory.

Follow-up Project
Brief: Design a personal web-site combining all design aspects to express happiness.

So far we're in the middle of the process, so it is a bit early to evaluate the success of the plan, but I hope this would be a useful starting point for anyone looking to set up�a design internship program at their company focusing on digital media.

Please, do have check back what's new at�http://internship.dreamture.net, any comments or feedback you might contribute to Dimitar's work will help make this a more successful program.

Visual Style Builder Survey

Zhivko Dimitrov — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:03:06 GMT

Once again, I am excited to announce the start of a new initiative to improve the user experience with skinning the Telerik controls. We are starting work on a new Visual Style Builder application for the ASP.NET AJAX Controls and a major upgrade of the existing application for the WinForms Controls. The Visual Style Builder will allow easy, point-and-click�customization of component skins, eliminating the need to get acquainted with the front-end structure of the controls. The Visual Style Builder will also speed up development of skins across several components - you will be able to define a style once and apply it across all components.

We have set up a short survey to get customer feedback about the project - what features do you need, how will you best integrate the Visual Style Builder in your current workflow, do you have any ideas to make the app even�more useful. We will appreciate all you have to say, your feedback will really help us deliver a tool right on target to your needs.

Please take the survey here - http://survey.telerik.com/Survey.aspx?s=539f87f197474174a03e22559d9e77a0. As usual,� there will be Telerik points to all who take the survey. If you really want to have a say in the design of the Visual Style Builder, please sign up at the end of the survey for our focus group program - we will bring together a small group of customers to evaluate the design of the application even before we start programming it, this is your chance to influence the direction of the project.

Skin Exchange Program

Zhivko Dimitrov — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:52:27 GMT

I am enthusiastic to announce the launch of the Telerik Skin Exchange Program - http://www.telerik.com/skins! We have created a meeting place for community members to exchange home-grown skins for the Telerik ASP.NET AJAX components. We know a lot of you have come up with amazing designs for our components and wanted to enable a platform to show these off and help the community. Seeing the tremendous support you guys give to each other every day on our forums and code library, I am confident you will take up on the initiative so we can build up a useful new resource for everyone in the community.

As usual, your efforts will not go unrewarded - we are giving out up to 10,000 Telerik points�for each product skin published, and all skins posted prior to September 1 automatically enter a community-vote competition for an Xbox and free RadControls subscription licenses.

A big thanks in advance to all participants!

Q2 Asp.Net skinning

Zhivko Dimitrov — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:54:08 GMT

It's that time of the year again and we're getting ready for the next quarterly release here at telerik. This time we have a major visual update coming for the ASP.NET product line. Almost all skins will get a refresh - some a minor QA to bring back to original designs, others a more thorough facelift. Wanted to get back to you even before the beta release next week with a sneak view of what's coming so you can have your say. Here's the major planned changes in skinning:

Black skin preserves its general look only gets a bit less..well, black - after feedback from you we decided to brighten up the shades a bit to improve on readability.
Default 2006, our much coveted original default skin will be replaced by a much needed simple gray skin - no color, no frills, a simple look to fit any design. The new skin, codenamed "Gray" is designed to seamlessly fit in any existing apps you might have already deployed using the Default 2006 look.
Inox gets a whole new look - general colors and metal feel will be preserved, but all interfaces will be thoroughly improved to reflect a more modern look.
Mac skin, much to our surprise, will be made obsolete, after feedback from our skinning survey indicating no one is using it.
The Telerik skin will get a thorough redesign. General color scheme is preserved, only the green gets further away from the signature "telerik" green in favor of a more standard color fitting more of your scenarios.
WebBlue gets only a minor retouch to freshen up the looks without any breaking changes.

All other skins will get the usual round of polishing/bug fixing. Much of our concern during the redesign has been preserving the general feel of our skins so that the new look fits in your existing applications. Ideally, we wanted to update the skins to keep them in line both with their original look and with the latest in interface design trends so that simply by upgrading an existing app you get a slicker look. We do realize in some cases visual discrepancies between the old and new look might be a nuisance, but we hope you will appreciate the fresher, more modern look.

Skinning survey

Zhivko Dimitrov — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:51:45 GMT

With design and User Experience fast gathering momentum as the leading factors behind the success or failure of IT projects, we're continuing efforts here at telerik to make sure the RadControls suites stay at the forefront of presentation layer trends. We have been riding the waves with the introduction of our black skin (ever since Vista and Office 2007, black seems to be the new white in interface design), and we fully support both the Vista and the Office 2007 interface looks - for the web and Winforms.

So what's next? We thought we should ask you. We're running a short survey to start a conversation about telerik skinning - which skins do you use, which ones are not helpful and what should be the direction of telerik design in the future? Your responses will have THE say for the style of the upcoming skins in our next release and shape the look of telerik components in the future, so this is your chance to ask for all the eye-candy your projects need. In an effort to optimize our performance and continue to deliver the latest in interface design, we are also thinking about phasing out older skins and skins that are not that widely used, and this survey will help us pinpoint strengths we should build on and weaknesses we need to address.

So, I hope this is the start of an active dialogue. The survey is available at�http://survey.telerik.com/Survey.aspx?s=000220f085e141d883b797c2b17386f9.

The new default skin (and how to switch back :)

Zhivko Dimitrov — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:09:00 GMT

With the Q2 release, we have decided it is time to refresh the look and feel of RadControls components to stay on the edge of the latest trends in visual design for the web. And ever since Vista, black is the new white. so we just had to join in with a trendy new theme for the default skins of our controls. The Q2 2007 skin sports a modern black twist, improved contrast, and larger font-sizes/more generous white space for a touch of web2.0 in your applications.

While we ardently urge everyone to switch to the new look, we do realize that work in progress might require that you upgrade to the latest version of a component but continue to use its old default skin - rest assured we've made it easy for you. I blogged about the upcoming change some time ago and based on your feedback we have decided to leave the old default skin in the Q2 build. It has been renamed to "Default2006" skin and you can continue to use it for all of your projects. You have two ways to switch back to the old default look:

Upgrading a single component/page
If your project has a limited number of RadControls components, you can simply go through each instance and add a Skin="Default2006" property to each tag. For example, if you have a RadGrid in your page that looks like: <radg:radgrid id="RadGrid1">, you should change that to <radg:radgrid Skin="Default2006" id="RadGrid1">
Upgrading all components within an application
For larger projects with many instances of RadControls components, you can set the skin of all components directly from the Web.Config file of the application. You will need to add the following code to the web.config:

<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="Telerik.WebControls.Skin" value="Default2006"/>
</appSettings>
</configuration>
The Skin property in the tag of a component (e.g. <radg:radgrid Skin="Default" id="RadGrid1">) will overwrite this setting, so you need to make sure that no Skin properties are explicitly set to the components in your project.

*Note: in both cases, if you are not using the embedded skins of RadControls, you will also need to copy the new RadControls folder from the Q2 distribution to the root of your application. If you don't know what an embedded skin is, then chances are you are using one, so no need to worry about this.

We've tried hard to make this change as easy as possible for you. Apologies to all who will need to take a few extra steps to bring back their existing applications to the previous look, we hope you will ultimately appreciate the improved looks in your next project!

Please note that the Default2006 skin will be deprecated as of our next release and you while it will still be available as a separate download, we will not continue to support it.

Q2 skinning

Zhivko Dimitrov — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 22:14:00 GMT

I thought I should drop a line to let you know about our plans for changes in the common skins of the Asp.Net product line. For the upcoming Q2 release this September we are planning to refresh the default look of our controls, discontinue development of two common skins, and add two new common skins in their place.

Default Skin Refreshed
The current default skin (the look of the components when you drop them from the toolbox; browse a preview of all current common skins here) has served well, but the time has come for a fresher look. While we wanted to preserve the skin neutral and clean, we have added contrast and a more modern look:

The Q2 dlls will ship with this new look built-in, so when you update your projects all components that use the default skin (or have no skin set) will automatically assume the new look. If you want to preserve the old default look, we will have the outdated version available for separate download from http://www.telerik.com/skins.

Discontinued Common Skins
We will say good bye to the Outlook common skin - 7 years after the introduction of Outlook 2000 it is time we move on to better things. The Inox common skin will need to go too - unless we get an overwhelming no from you, we will no longer update this skin in the future releases. Both skins will still be available for download.

New Common Skins
We are adding a Black Vista skin to all components and another web-style common skin that is still under discussion. Now is the time to get back with requests for a new look - if you've spotted a style you would love to have, leave a comment here and we will consider it.

Apart from all these changes, we have a host of new product-specific skins coming with the Q2 release, which is promising to be a major uplift for our Asp.Net interfaces. While we're still cooking it all, we will appreciate any feedback you might have for the direction you want to see us heading.

WebDD

Zhivko Dimitrov — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 12:23:00 GMT

Just came back from this year's webDD event at the Microsoft campus in Reading, UK and wanted to give a big thank you to Dave and Phil and all the organizers for the great experience - it was an insightful weekend with Scott Guthries' news on AJAX and WPFe, and a great chance to check back on industry developments with fellow designers and developers. With web standards and the Rails technology heavily emphasized in the sessions, it was truly refreshing to see in action Microsoft's recent dedication to industry standards and their openness to alternative frameworks. Dave Verwer's lecture on Unobtrusive JavaScript was an eye-opener and definitely something we will be further exploring here at telerik. As promised, I am uploading the slides from my presentation on Remote User Testing. Once again, a big thank you to all who approached us with feedback on telerik and the rad controls suite and.. looking forward to next year's event.

User Experience at telerik

Zhivko Dimitrov — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 22:26:00 GMT

For the last half a year, we've been quietly revolutionizing software development here at telerik, trying to integrate a thought about the user on all stages of product development. While we really wanted to improve the User Experience, we were very careful not to go too far with needlessly expensive usability best-practices - we believe the smartest solutions are usually the simplest solutions, so we looked around for a way to measure usability that would not involve furnishing a state-of-the-art recording studio and flying users over continents. For a start, we thought we just needed to observe users interact with telerik products - from the comfort of their home or office, in the context of their desktop, browser, and IDE. This is how the telerik remote testing program was born - we have been meeting with developers and end-users on all continents through online conference tools to watch them user interact with our products, hunt down frustrations and come up with ways to improve the experience.

UE initiatives at telerik are already resulting in better products, innovation ideas, and decreased release time from making iterations early on in production cycles, before development starts. While we are now more than ever aware of the many problems in our product line, this is the first step in our commitment to go beyond providing bug-free software towards offering a frustration-free, fun experience not just for our customers, but for their customers as well.

To give an idea of our work so far, we compiled a summary with user experience issues uncovered during a test with r.a.d.grid end-users. Last November we run a series of tests to evaluate how end-users (business professionals and data-entry clerks, New York area) perform tasks with r.a.d.grid. This preview outlines some of the most common problems - some of those were already addressed in our last Q4 2006 release, and the rest will be resolved in the upcoming r.a.d.grid updates.

Later next month I will be speaking at the WebDD event in Reading, UK sharing our experience with remote user testing. The event is shaping up as a great place to exchange know-how for web developers and designers, and I would love to talk to any of you planning to visit. My colleague Hristo Deshev will be talking about AJAX components, so drop us a line if you are up for a tech talk or. a tech beer.

telerik skins survey

Zhivko Dimitrov — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 22:06:00 GMT

I've been having this nightmare recently that we're off track with what customers are looking for in terms of interface design, and I guess the best way to find out how we're doing is to ask you guys. So I've set up a short online survey for all willing to help us feel where the industry is heading and provide feedback for what they need. Your feedback so far is truly encouraging and will be instrumental in crafting our future plans for skin development, interface design and visual presentation of all telerik components. I would strongly encourage all of you with a stake in our product line to take a part of the survey - this is your chance to speak out, so we can deliver :) Once I play around with the data I will publish here a brief highlight of our strategy for keeping r.a.d.controls the standard for professional interfaces, so check back. Meanwhile, feel free to leave a comment here if you forgot to include anything in your survey.

>>Take survey here

WPF in action - part 1: Designer's look on WPF

Zhivko Dimitrov — Sun, 28 May 2006 21:52:00 GMT

I am yet to grasp the marketing behind Microsoft naming conventions - usually a beta program would jump start with a great name, the official launch would kill it in a dull title, and things would finally settle down with an abbreviation that is actually pronounceable. Naming conventions aside, the upcoming Windows Presentation Framework (WPF), formerly known as Avalon, holds promise to become the next buzzword of the industry - even if someone adds to it another sentence before the official roll-out with Windows Vista in early 2007.

From a designer's point of view, the next-generation interface for Windows is all about vectors, animations, and real 3D. Besides eye-candy for us designers to expand creative horizons, the WPF also offers a powerful program language (XAML) for developers to explore. What's even better, Microsoft has taken a path to bridge the divide between developers and designers, providing graphic-design tools that work seamlessly with the VS development environment. The ultimate vision is that a designer could open a VS project in a graphic-design program and literally draw the interfaces over the forms, publishing the final design with no aid from developers. Top that with a promise for a cross-browser, cross-platform support that spans from Safari & Mozilla to palms & TV-sets, and you will get an idea why everyone is so excited about the upcoming release.
I would summarize WPF's main selling points with two words - rich and reach. WPF allows the design of rich experiences with scalable graphics, video, animations, 3D rendering, transparency and a host of additional. All of this in a single format that reaches all PC, MAC, TV, smartphone, and palm devices...

The switch will not go without sacrifices - If I have to be honest, I was a bit skeptical at the beginning about learning a new graphics tool - the MS Expressions suite, and a bit frustrated about having to part with long-time favorites Adobe Photoshop and Flash. That was before I actually tried to implement a Windows Forms interface with only Photoshop at hand... I go to great pains to strike the right set of gradients that really have the glassy, polished look of trendy Office12-style interfaces and it hurts to see the actual implementation of your Photoshop screenshot only a close approximation to original colors & gradients. With the Expression suite, it should be really a WYSIWYG experience, to the relief of both developers & designers. My first look at the Expressions Interactive Designer (March CTP) left me with mixed feelings really - the program clearly lacks the usability of a finished product and with scarce documentation and internet resources on the subject, achieving even small tasks becomes a challenge. The promise of a rich media interface delivered on all platforms, however, is too lucrative a bait to pass by.

To keep you in track with the latest in technologies, we will be uploading a series of WPF tutorials. We are working on a simple application in WPF to showcase the technology at the techEd in Boston later next month and we will publish a step-by-step manual so you can practice building the application yourself. Stay posted for our next post with more on the topic.

Telerik skins photoshop sources.

Zhivko Dimitrov — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 18:24:00 GMT

Thinking how to make your life and our ROI targets easier, we decided it's a good idea to provide for download the Photoshop sources of our components' skins. So we sat down and toiled relentlessly to tame the mess of untitled layers into something of actual business value - the result is a section at http://www.telerik.com/skins with free downloads of the Photoshop sources for the most requested telerik skins. Pure design goodness for you to customize and build upon. Remember this section when the time comes to design your next application - this time you can jump start with a ready template, easy to change to fit the specifics of the project.

Our next step is to give you the option to upload and share with our community your own custom skins of telerik components - we thought it would be a wonderful chance to show off those design skills, meet with other professionals in the field, and exchange expertise and interface design know-how. What's your opinion on this - would you be willing to contribute your telerik skins to mankind? What are your thoughts on setting up a community of interface design professionals to exchange trends and ideas, ultimately helping each other grow professionally? We welcome all of your suggestions for community initiatives that would help you achieve more with the telerik controls - more than expected.

Glassy buttons, interrupted?

Zhivko Dimitrov — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 21:39:00 GMT

Has the time come to challenge the top place of glassy look in today's web notion for haute couture? What could possibly act cooler than a glassy button on your web site?

Admit it, even if you never had it, at one point or another you secretly craved for one. One of those fat, professional looking glassy buttons that scream out loud style & grace and are said to sky-rocket click through rates. Everyone's got it - for the last couple of years, web interface has been all about this glassy feel - ironically enough, with the fall of the glassy CRT monitor, the material seemed to find its way even further into the fabric of web experiences.

If you've got it, flaunt it!
So, the glassy button turned into an easy way to add "style" to a web-site. Spurred under the brilliant creative of the Apple design team, the glass frenzy took over from the Mac interface to mainstream web design and is now a proud feature of all sites - big and small, professional and profane. While its widespread use helped turn it into a standard for web feel, it has taken away from its appeal as a novel, exciting interface element - the glassy button is no longer the latest fashion, it turns into a norm.

So what's the next big thing?
Here at telerik, we believe we're spotting a new trend emerging for web interfaces. It seems like all the factors are in place to push textured metal as the next big thing on the net:

Apple has been pushing the material forward for a long time, so metal is a no-news for the web designer. Limited as it is in numbers of actual users, Apple is THE trend-setter on the web: with its easy reach to designers and innovators and its reputation for design, Mac starts the waves.
Microsoft has finally embraced it. We've seen metal all over the new Office 12 interfaces, used in novel ways, which I must admit, won me over at first sight. So the material will be streamed to the mass market next year and will start forming people's expectations about PC interface.
Glass just goes with metal. It is the combination of choice for modern architecture, so why shouldn't the marriage be a success on the screen as well? Again at the frontline, Apple has stirred the spirits with its latest glass staircase addition to high profile Apple stores. Seems like everyone is all over the idea, so it is only a matter of time until the offline craze goes online.

What's in it for me?
Here's your chance for a hero-of-the-day experience. With Apple selling the idea to trend-setters and Microsoft pushing in to mass market, metal will be huge next year. With a pronounced frenzy in the offline world in full fury, it is a no-risk certified preference, waiting for web designers to capitalize upon. As was the case with the glassy feel, early adopters will reap the benefits of perceived innovation & trend-setting, before the crowd moves in.

Need I mention we will be adding a line of textured metal skins across the product line just in time?