C H A P T E R  4

Creating the Views

The process of creating the views of a WPF application may look simple, but it is probably the most important part of the development process; you can't simply drag controls onto a window or user control, add some fancy styles on it, and pretend that the user will learn how to use the UI.

There are some concepts in the UI design process that are fundamental for a successful product. For example, it doesn't matter if the product is a complex enterprise resources planning (ERP) application or a simple time tracker; it has to satisfy the user requirements, and it has to be effective and easy to use.

In this chapter, you will see how you can create dynamic prototypes in WPF using Expression Blend and how you can move forward from these prototypes and create the skeleton of your application that consists of the views, the view models, and the navigation between the views. At the end of the chapter, you will be ready to add custom controls to the views in the TimeTracker application.