Expression Blend Looks Creepy

Just installed Expression Blend (beta 1) This has to be one of the ugliest IDEs I've seen. It reminds me of wandering through the lobby and halls of the W hotel in Seattle at night! Creepy!
I switched to the Light scheme right away which is marginally better than the dark, monochromatic look.
What's weird is that some MS people think it's "friendlier, easier, more elegant".

If you don't mind, could we just have a "normal" Windows interface option - like in the good ol'  days?
Published 04 December 2006 07:45 PM by Ken Cox [MVP]
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Comments

# WebLog of Ken Cox : Expression Blend Looks Creepy said on 04 December, 2006 10:16 PM

PingBack from http://weblogs.asp.net/kencox/archive/2006/12/04/expression-blend-looks-creepy.aspx

# interscape said on 04 December, 2006 10:29 PM

It looks WAY better than the whitewashed version from before. At least you can see everything now.

# FransBouma said on 05 December, 2006 03:46 AM

haha the W hotel, great metaphore! :D

FB, who really wonders who will ever buy this software because it's not included in the MSDN.

# IEUSER said on 25 May, 2007 11:04 PM

Do you realize that the target consumers are designers and it's indsutry practice to limit the use of color as your eye's will be more sensative to the actual work your doing instead of being distracted by some cheeze ball UI effect. (MSN Live Messanger is designed to distract you so you notice AD's and such, e.g. you can notice the effect of the adds they use often has a slight animation).

YAWN, read up a bit, maybe you'll learn something,

mindbrain.ucdavis.edu/.../Hopfinger2001

# Ken Cox [MVP] said on 26 May, 2007 11:02 AM

IEUSER, I'll take your word for it that it's "industry practice" to use ugly interfaces. That hasn't been my experience with tools like Fireworks and Photoshop which retain some personality.

# Xtek said on 06 August, 2007 12:52 PM

Ken, I think the point is Blend was made in WPF/C#3/.NET 3.0 itself.  In fact on Channel9 it was stated Blend's itnerface was created in itself as it grew.  I can't say I'm entirely head-over-heals over the interface but it shows that custom interfaces can look pretty decent.  Besides they were really rushed to get Blend out the door.

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