 <p>It depends if you are using any MVVM model or not.</p> <p>My suggestion, if you are not using a MVVM, is to use Blend Sample data, is fast and quick.</p> <p>If you are MVVM Light I've found very usefull to create two files: DataService.cs - contains the real connection and data DesignDataService.cs - contains the sample data</p> <p>The two libraries are identical, from an call perspective so that in the ViewModelLocator you can swap them:</p> <pre class="lang-csh prettyprint-override"><code> if (ViewModelBase.IsInDesignModeStatic) { SimpleIoc.Default.Register&lt;IDataService, Design.DesignDataService&gt;(); } else { //SimpleIoc.Default.Register&lt;IDataService, Design.DesignDataService&gt;(); SimpleIoc.Default.Register&lt;IDataService, DataService&gt;(); } </code></pre> <p>In the Design class I've decided to create an XML file for each Model so that it's easy to change the sample data and test all possible scenarios.</p> <p>I then use the Deserialize function to read it:</p> <pre class="lang-csh prettyprint-override"><code> csNodeList _Copyrights = new csNodeList(); resource = System.Windows.Application.GetResourceStream(new Uri(@"Design/sampledata.xml", UriKind.Relative)); streamReader = new StreamReader(resource.Stream); serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(csNodeList)); _Copyrights = (csNodeList)serializer.Deserialize(streamReader); </code></pre> <p>Please note that the file sampledata.xml has to be stored in folder Design and must be defined as Content not as Resource. It is suggested to improve performance and load time.</p> <p>M</p>