}
Client: Microsoft
An app to build cool desktop, mobile, and web apps.
Before HTML5, apps, Unity and iOS, Blend was on the frontier of rich interactive applications that combined animation, data-binding, 3D, layout, programming, and resolution-independent graphics.
Blend is a groundbreaking and influential product that represents several firsts: the first major WPF application, written entirely in C#, using a pure-vector scalable user interface, with 100% automated test infrastructure. And that’s just what’s under the hood.
Blend anticipated the rise of high resolution, high-DPI displays — at a time when the average monitor’s resolution was 1024x768. The entire tool was designed to build interfaces that could scale from low-resolution to retina displays without any changes.
Other innovations included WYSIWYG live scene graph editing, control composition, UI markup, and deep integration of code and design.
Blend was created to give designers more control over the final product by placing them directly into the development process. Designers can see their UX exactly as it will appear live. This was a huge innovation over the traditional ‘hand-off and wait’ design integration process.
Nearly every piece of the platform beneath Blend was under construction throughout development - from the OS (Windows) to the language (C#) on up to the SDK (WPF). Blend influenced the design of these platforms by testing them in a real product.
Today Blend is used inside Microsoft to build the UX for XBox, Windows 7 through Windows 10, mobile, and web applications. Pixel Division’s Devon Strawn was a member of the original Blend team.