Allowing contemporary developers and designers a more effective method of communication is incredibly valuable. Yet more importantly, I think this tool finally marks the industry's official acknowledgment of "interactive designers".
By "interactive designers" I'm not referring to developers who are self-taught photoshop gurus, or designers who know how to alter a script. I'm talking about professionally trained graphic designers who have been schooled in human behavior (psychology / sociology) and software development.
I was totally blown away by the Sparkle demo that was posted to Slashdot last week. Nevertheless, Sparkle is just a tool. It's not going to teach developers the idiosyncrasies of visual communication, and it's not going to teach designer's programing logic. It'll set some boundaries and drastically speed up prototyping.
However, once companies start utilizing tools likes Sparkle, AND start hiring legitimate "interactive designers"... we should start to see some see some really cool shit. "Design" is not something that should be separate from development. Designers and developers / engineers need to be on a design team from stage one.
It's common practice to a) engineer and or conceptualize functionality before considering interactivity and ascetics, and or b) design pretty concepts that are impractical to develop. Both of these approaches don't make any sense.
If you ask me, a software development "dream team" would be composed of adept developers with some schooling in industrial design, and adept graphic designers with schooling in human behavior and computer science. When they'd start a new project, they would enter ideation, design, and development stages together... and they'd have some tools like Sparkle readily available. Because, well, Flash and Photoshop interactivity prototyping is a soul sucking vortex that needs to die. Seriously.
Yet, this won't start to happen until interdisciplinary education becomes common place.
OK, I'll reply to my own post... I just saw the demo video.... that tool is RAD.
Will this benefit interactive designers?
on
Flash, Meet Sparkle
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I'm a grad student studying interactive design, and I'm fairly intrigued about a software package seemingly being marketed toward "interactive designers."
Currently, interactive designers are few and far between. It's difficult to find a -good- graphic designer who understands human behavior and software development.
I know a ton of good developers who can produce ok interfaces (ok as in "ehh", not ok as in "good"); I know a slew of good designers who don't know a string from an array; and I know several HCI gurus who don't understand graphic design / visual communication from a hole in the ground.
So, here are my questions... is Sparkle evidence of Microsoft's foresight? Does Microsoft realize "interactive design" is an emerging discipline? Are they going to cater to new designers who are capable of communicating with developers and contributing toward in initial development. Or, is Sparkle just another attempt at offering staggered babelfish communication between designers and developers who really don't understand each other's jobs?
If it's the latter, I don't know how successful this product is going to be.
This sounds fairly rad, but I'm somewhat pessimistic. After seeing the UIs for Windows Vista(TM) and Word 12, I doubt Microsoft really understands interactive design. How can they understand interactive design if they're not hiring real interactive designers, or at the very least, not incorporating them properly into the development process? My complaints about OS X's Finder pale in comparison to my complaints about those gift wrapped turds.
Man... what I would give for one day in Redmond with executive management.
Personally, I think the next big wave in software development is going to come from interactivity
I'm sure a number of people have screwed themselfs by blasting music through a walkman, but the iPod is fairly different.
First off, an iPod battery lasts a hell of a longer then a walkman and it recharges relatively quickly. When I frequently used a walkman / diskman batteries definitely influenced how I used the device. Batteries only lasted so long, and I had to buy them from the store. That inconvenience prevented me from using the device on countless occasions.
Secondly, an iPod can carry a giant variety of songs. That wasn't the case with a walkman/disk man. An iPod can hold my attention indefinitely.
And finally, an iPod is considerably more portable then an walkman. I bring my iPod everywhere. There was no way I was ever going to lug a CD or cassette player around with me at all times.
All in all, the device is more accessable and capable of holding your attention longer... that results in increased headphone usage.
I'm a graphic / interactive designer and I don't think this has anything to do with "evolution."
Deciding to apply cell shading to Zelda isn't what hurt the franchise, it's the illustrative style they adopted. Nintendo adopted an illustrative style that is, traditionally, associated with childhood. If their art director opted for more universally appealing illustrations, they wouldn't have seen the big backlash.
That being said. The game was quite fun... but too easy in comparison to past Zelda titles.
That's bullshit. If you're the President of the United States you drop everything you're doing, get down there, and survey the damage with your own eyes.
He has two offices that fly. There is no excuse. Teleconferencing, no matter how advanced, ain't going to cut it.
As for that last sentence, I would agree that stealing music is wrong. Nevertheless, I think a lot of this boils down to something Steve Jobs was preaching when the ITMS store launched.
Essentially, Steve has been arguing that downloaders are usually not people who steal for the stake of stealing, they steal because they're music junkies who REALLY like the convenience of downloading music.
This means that if you cater to these people, and you give them convenient / reasonable ways to buy music legally, many of them will gladly do it.
Has George finally decided to go back to work yet? I noticed that he was still traveling around on his wartime PR tour today. He mentioned Louisiana for about a minute or two... and then he moved right back to freedom, terrorists, and some other redundant talking points.
Considering the dead bodies on roof tops and attics, a destroyed major city, and the danger of a potential recession, you'd think the guy would be trying to do something more significant.... or at least trying to LOOK like he was doing something significant.
If you need to choose, live in a quake region. Sure they're unpredictable, and the first one or two might make you poop yourself. However, if you don't live or work on landfill, in a dated structure, or by a major fault line, you'll be fine.
But then you have people such as my parents. They're 60 years old and they bought a giant 7 seat Explorer because they vacation in Tahoe once a year (in the summer) and want room "for the family."
Yet, 99.99999999% of the time, the car is used by my mother to go to Safeway. Their kids have all grown up, and their parents are gone. They've never needed more then 4 seats.
Moreover, they've never toed anything OR needed to use four wheal drive. The thing has never been in the snow or dirt... unless you count a dirt parking lot.
Unfortunately, there are one too many SUV owners that are in a VERY similar position.
True, the software model has worked well for Microsoft. However, it has also brought countless hardware variables to the table. A closed hardware platform has a lot of benefits to it.
Mac Clones, unlike Apple Macs, were plagued with an increased number of annoying patches, 3rd party drivers, and compatibility problems... much like Windows.
Yup. I -highly- doubt Yahoo bought this because they care about MacOS. They really started to focus on Windows development after Apple started pushing Dashboard.
Dashboard has been a smash hit on MacOS, owning the rights to a Windows equivalent could be a powerful asset.
That site used to be awesome.... primarily because it sucked.
Now it's loaded with hot graphics, new and improved "hampsters," remixed music, etc. Heck, even the old archived site has hot sidebar graphics and new music.
Slashdot Mirror
Allowing contemporary developers and designers a more effective method of communication is incredibly valuable. Yet more importantly, I think this tool finally marks the industry's official acknowledgment of "interactive designers".
By "interactive designers" I'm not referring to developers who are self-taught photoshop gurus, or designers who know how to alter a script. I'm talking about professionally trained graphic designers who have been schooled in human behavior (psychology / sociology) and software development.
I was totally blown away by the Sparkle demo that was posted to Slashdot last week. Nevertheless, Sparkle is just a tool. It's not going to teach developers the idiosyncrasies of visual communication, and it's not going to teach designer's programing logic. It'll set some boundaries and drastically speed up prototyping.
However, once companies start utilizing tools likes Sparkle, AND start hiring legitimate "interactive designers"... we should start to see some see some really cool shit. "Design" is not something that should be separate from development. Designers and developers / engineers need to be on a design team from stage one.
It's common practice to a) engineer and or conceptualize functionality before considering interactivity and ascetics, and or b) design pretty concepts that are impractical to develop. Both of these approaches don't make any sense.
If you ask me, a software development "dream team" would be composed of adept developers with some schooling in industrial design, and adept graphic designers with schooling in human behavior and computer science. When they'd start a new project, they would enter ideation, design, and development stages together... and they'd have some tools like Sparkle readily available. Because, well, Flash and Photoshop interactivity prototyping is a soul sucking vortex that needs to die. Seriously.
Yet, this won't start to happen until interdisciplinary education becomes common place.
OK, I'll reply to my own post... I just saw the demo video.... that tool is RAD.
I'm a grad student studying interactive design, and I'm fairly intrigued about a software package seemingly being marketed toward "interactive designers."
Currently, interactive designers are few and far between. It's difficult to find a -good- graphic designer who understands human behavior and software development.
I know a ton of good developers who can produce ok interfaces (ok as in "ehh", not ok as in "good"); I know a slew of good designers who don't know a string from an array; and I know several HCI gurus who don't understand graphic design / visual communication from a hole in the ground.
So, here are my questions... is Sparkle evidence of Microsoft's foresight? Does Microsoft realize "interactive design" is an emerging discipline? Are they going to cater to new designers who are capable of communicating with developers and contributing toward in initial development. Or, is Sparkle just another attempt at offering staggered babelfish communication between designers and developers who really don't understand each other's jobs?
If it's the latter, I don't know how successful this product is going to be.
This sounds fairly rad, but I'm somewhat pessimistic. After seeing the UIs for Windows Vista(TM) and Word 12, I doubt Microsoft really understands interactive design. How can they understand interactive design if they're not hiring real interactive designers, or at the very least, not incorporating them properly into the development process? My complaints about OS X's Finder pale in comparison to my complaints about those gift wrapped turds.
Man... what I would give for one day in Redmond with executive management.
Personally, I think the next big wave in software development is going to come from interactivity
sure, you could picks a less controversial fuel... but cats are funny, and that's what matters.
I don't know about this being "nothing new".
/disk man. An iPod can hold my attention indefinitely.
I'm sure a number of people have screwed themselfs by blasting music through a walkman, but the iPod is fairly different.
First off, an iPod battery lasts a hell of a longer then a walkman and it recharges relatively quickly. When I frequently used a walkman / diskman batteries definitely influenced how I used the device. Batteries only lasted so long, and I had to buy them from the store. That inconvenience prevented me from using the device on countless occasions.
Secondly, an iPod can carry a giant variety of songs. That wasn't the case with a walkman
And finally, an iPod is considerably more portable then an walkman. I bring my iPod everywhere. There was no way I was ever going to lug a CD or cassette player around with me at all times.
All in all, the device is more accessable and capable of holding your attention longer... that results in increased headphone usage.
I'm a graphic / interactive designer and I don't think this has anything to do with "evolution."
Deciding to apply cell shading to Zelda isn't what hurt the franchise, it's the illustrative style they adopted. Nintendo adopted an illustrative style that is, traditionally, associated with childhood. If their art director opted for more universally appealing illustrations, they wouldn't have seen the big backlash.
That being said. The game was quite fun... but too easy in comparison to past Zelda titles.
That's bullshit. If you're the President of the United States you drop everything you're doing, get down there, and survey the damage with your own eyes.
He has two offices that fly. There is no excuse. Teleconferencing, no matter how advanced, ain't going to cut it.
As for that last sentence, I would agree that stealing music is wrong. Nevertheless, I think a lot of this boils down to something Steve Jobs was preaching when the ITMS store launched.
Essentially, Steve has been arguing that downloaders are usually not people who steal for the stake of stealing, they steal because they're music junkies who REALLY like the convenience of downloading music.
This means that if you cater to these people, and you give them convenient / reasonable ways to buy music legally, many of them will gladly do it.
Well, what did you expect from a movie that sounds like "Ass Pirates" if you say the title too quickly.
Has George finally decided to go back to work yet? I noticed that he was still traveling around on his wartime PR tour today. He mentioned Louisiana for about a minute or two... and then he moved right back to freedom, terrorists, and some other redundant talking points.
Considering the dead bodies on roof tops and attics, a destroyed major city, and the danger of a potential recession, you'd think the guy would be trying to do something more significant.... or at least trying to LOOK like he was doing something significant.
ehh.
If you need to choose, live in a quake region. Sure they're unpredictable, and the first one or two might make you poop yourself. However, if you don't live or work on landfill, in a dated structure, or by a major fault line, you'll be fine.
True, but when brakes fail people die :shrug:
Until you drink it and die from space aids.
I think they just invented meth.
Best screenshot ever
http://www.ghostalmedia.com/fukov.jpg
Agreed.
But then you have people such as my parents. They're 60 years old and they bought a giant 7 seat Explorer because they vacation in Tahoe once a year (in the summer) and want room "for the family."
Yet, 99.99999999% of the time, the car is used by my mother to go to Safeway. Their kids have all grown up, and their parents are gone. They've never needed more then 4 seats.
Moreover, they've never toed anything OR needed to use four wheal drive. The thing has never been in the snow or dirt... unless you count a dirt parking lot.
Unfortunately, there are one too many SUV owners that are in a VERY similar position.
Now... let's place some bets.
How many iPod owners will...
a) be aware that this refund exists; and
b) be motivated to fill out a form and address an envelope.
anyone else think that was a poorly written article?
dude, don't diss my 7500/180 and it's kick ass 604e. :)
That was a hot computer 8 years ago!
OS 7.5.5, 128megs ram, a 2 gig fireball harddrive, and it could decode MP3s -and- run Hotline at the same time!
That computer downloaded sooo much Sublime for me.
"Welcome to the Hall of Presidents" ... that's all I have to say about this stupid robot.
True, the software model has worked well for Microsoft. However, it has also brought countless hardware variables to the table. A closed hardware platform has a lot of benefits to it.
Mac Clones, unlike Apple Macs, were plagued with an increased number of annoying patches, 3rd party drivers, and compatibility problems... much like Windows.
Ohh how quickly we forget about Power Computing, Power Max, Windows, and why this a bad idea.
Yup. I -highly- doubt Yahoo bought this because they care about MacOS. They really started to focus on Windows development after Apple started pushing Dashboard.
Dashboard has been a smash hit on MacOS, owning the rights to a Windows equivalent could be a powerful asset.
That site used to be awesome.... primarily because it sucked.
Now it's loaded with hot graphics, new and improved "hampsters," remixed music, etc. Heck, even the old archived site has hot sidebar graphics and new music.
What a way to kill a joke.
(waves Jedi hand) there are no increased cancer rates.