WPF reduces the amount of procedural code in application specifications and enables increased collaboration amongst various team members in the development team and in turn, rationalizes the development process. XAML is the new technology from Microsoft that drives this union between design and implementation. XAML is a declarative mark up language based on XML and is used in initializing structured values and objects. The acronym stands for Extensible Application Markup Language. XAML is designed as an enhanced method of developing application user interfaces and is used extensively in the .NET Framework 3.0 technologies, mostly in WPF. XAML helps create graphically rich visual User Interfaces (similar to the ones created by Adobe Flash, UIML etc.) when used in WPF. WPF supports various features like 2D and 3D objects, animations, rotations, and various other effects.

The XAML advantage to WPF goes to its declarative nature that allows developers to describe the behavior and integration of components without using procedural programming. This helps a developer to create a working application even without much knowledge of procedural programming. This case however is rare where an entire application is developed on XAML, but in practical scenarios, XAML enables the designers to more effectively contribute during any application's development. XAML, however, is not specific to WPF or .NET and the standard is in use by other technologies too.