I was literally sitting here using Marvel to create a lo fi proto and thinking of all the great things it could do even better. Thinking of how maybe I could be a beta tester. Thinking of how I really like the UI of Marvel, the results, interfacing with desktop or mobile browsers for viewing and how it does a great job protoyping. My thoughts shifted though to the ease of how Axure allows me to do the wireframing, communicate the effort and then turn it into a working prototype right there with all sorts of features and logic. Axure can be complicated and is a desktop tool, not web based at least for me and I don't have the budget to buy the enterprise edition.
Then I started thinking about how I needed to animate something, can I do that in Marvel. I started searching and found a blog post which answered a couple of my queries.
The title of this post, Flash is dead, could not be further from the truth. Flash is not dead, it is more alive than ever. This thought overcame me as I sat there listening to a guy who blurted this out in a cacophony of dribble along with about 20 other mental dumps in finality with this comment... "Even Adobe said so!". Now I don't exactly remember Adobe saying that Flash is dead or anything like that, maybe they did, but let me clue you in to what I know.
Google uses Flash. YouTube, Maps, Google Docs and collaboration platforms and interactive functionality that could not be achieved via normal HTML standards use Flash. Now, even tho Google has played a large part in maturing javascript beyond what we knew of it, Flash still performs many tasks within its contained operational boundaries well. Zynga uses Flash. All of the interactive games presented thru Facebook and social media in past years and reaching 10 million active daily users were developed in Flash. Farmtown and all the others pumped thru Facebook and the Internet are Flash based. Video Display uses Flash. Flash opened the door to video playback and an architecture that worked with Interactive functions beyond just stop, pause and play. Flash allowed developers to create full sites or contained modules that can access video components in many ways beyond just simple display. Within flash we could create gaming elements, layered motion images, decisive video components based on user interaction, transparent motion images and an overall ability to make video work as a part of the user experience and not just a "watch this" chunk of content.
Why do I care? I am using Flash as a way to communicate the User Flow of touchscreen interaction and User Experience designed functions on a current device controller app and it has worked amazingly well to communicate the user touch points, user flow, content flow, selction result and connection between the user, the screen function and the device function.
This practice coupled with a Windows or Android Tablet has made the project come to life without programming the entire app within any platform but rather rapidly developing and translating the Interface Design to user controlled motion interaction. This has saved time and allowed me to alter the user flow while determining the motion and control elements as we want them to be programmed for the final result. We will know what we want and how we want it to work on screen before actually programming it for the final result.
Pre Visualization is valuable and this action takes the pre-viz portion of the project to new heights. Normally I would....
1. Design wireframes, get approval, design the interface, get approval, design the content screens, get approval... the client not actually connecting with the user flow or not being able to actually test its strengths or weaknesses until the functionality is built ...or...
2. Design the content screens, develop a simple HTML user flow that limits the interaction to clicking buttons to screen selections. For a simple data flow app this may work fine, but as functions, control and display elements mature this limits the visualization process.
Finally, limited pre viz action means I have to babysit a project during programming phase or come back and modify processes that after being fleshed out we found could be better, which causes delays in development deadlines or doesnt allow me to move on to another facet or project. Solve the issues early with as much intelligence as possible so when your project goes into programming you already know the end result.
Flash helped a bunch, thanks Adobe.
