The Book

A good portion of my free time this year was consumed by the book Andy and I wrote, “Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0″. Writing a book is something I had always thought about writing, but never knew what about. The subject matter for the book became immediately apparent after giving a presentation at 360|Flex. Andy and I jumped in with both feet and are glad to see all the work we put into the book has paid off with good reviews coming in.

For those of you asking for a poster of the diagrams in the back of the book, we’re working on it.

ScaleNine

ScaleNine has been doing pretty well. I’ve been slacking on updates to the Showcase and Resources sections because of other things I’ve gotten involved with. I was able to put on a contest thanks to Adobe, specifically Andrew Shorten and Mike Potter, and EffectiveUI. Not only did Patrick Hansen whip together an awesome logo, but we got a great response with 20+ themes added to ScaleNine.

Stats for the site have definitely grown, which is probably in part to the interest in Flex/AIR growing. Here’s some numbers:

124,470 Unique Visitors

533,319 Page Views

197,399 Visits

Last year stats were 145,427 visits, 323,763 page views and 90,446 visitors. Sounds like I need to start getting some ads on there to generate some revenue for the long hours managing the site

Degrafa

This year has been an exciting one for Degrafa. Working with Adobe to find a happy medium with Degrafa and FXG was great to see and I think some of the full benefits of that are still to come. What’s really been amazing is the number of downloads, the amount of community support (like tutorials, screencasts and samples) and seeing some big name companies using the framework. We get emails from people all the time saying that the reason they looked at Flex was because of Degrafa. It’s stuff like that that keeps the team going.

I think this year is going to be awesome for Degrafa. We have several things in the works that are going to blow people’s minds. We’re on our way to Degrafa 1.0, but we’re also looking at things that will compliment the framework and make it a very approachable solution for designer’s and developers.

Effective UI

In February of 2008 I started at EffectiveUI as an Experience Architect. The first project I got to work on was awesome. I got to architect, design and develop a fun AIR application that I hope to share more information about soon.

Since that first project I’ve been able to work with technologies beyond Flex (iPhone, Android, etc.) and across different types of devices. It’s been fun, as each device/technology/app offers it’s own set of problems.

I’ve also been able to hone my design skills at a rapid pace. The design team at EffectiveUI is awesome. It’s the reason I moved to Denver, so I could sit right in the middle of it. The conversations that fly around just amaze me and I couldn’t imagine not going into the “office” every day.

I’m excited to see what we do this next year as a company. If it’s anything like what we’ve talked about, it’s going to rock!

The Industry

I’m excited to see where things go in the industry in 2009. 2008 almost felt like a transitionary state that will take new paths in 2009 with things like Flash Catalyst, Android, 3D and more. Sitting right in the middle of it all is definitely inspiring.

Other Stuffs

Beyond all the work stuff, my fiancé and I have settled into Denver (oh yeah, I’m engaged). It’s a great city. Granted it is colder than Southern California, it’s what I wanted. A change.

This year also saw me go out and present a bit more. I was excited to make it out to MAX Europe to present on “Prototyping AIR Applications with Fireworks CS4″. Maybe next year I can hit a trifecta for MAX (North America, Europe & Japan).

Future Stuffs

Another things I’ve always wanted to do is start my own successful business. Whether by myself or with others. There’s nothing to report on that yet, but I’ve got ideas and several seeds have been planted. I’m excited to see if any of them take in 2009.

One of my goals for 2009 is to crank out more screencasts. I can make them much more quickly than tutorial blog posts, but that’s probably cause I don’t do any editing.

The End

So, this post turned out to be much longer than I expected and I’m sure I forgot to mention some stuff. Anyway, I look forward to seeing everyone in 2009. See you next year!

One of the designer’s at EffectiveUI turned me on to a magazine called “SEED“. SEED focuses on “Science is Culture” and it’s a really well-designed magazine that initially caught my eye with some nice diagrams and visualizations. It has a really great sense of design all-around with details that I enjoy discovering.

The best thing is that some has taken the time to go through issues of the magazine and post them on Flickr. The photos capture the magazine in a printed state rather than it being flat artwork which also adds a nice feel. The above image was taken from that Flickr photostream.

Check out SEED Magazine on Flickr

After being involved with different types of projects and playing different roles on those projects I have definitely started seeing patterns in the way applications are used to create RIAs and what seems to work best. Different projects have different expectations at the design stages. Sometimes the deliverable is a series of “wireframes”, refined views or a full prototype. For a successful series of applications, these use-cases need to be supported. Based on my experiences I’ve assembled a list of what I’d want in an “RIA Suite”.

Fireworks

For me, Fireworks is my go-to application for UI design. I can rapidly iterate on designs that maintain vector qualities, make rich symbols for quickly laying out views and keep everything pretty well organized. Fireworks CS4 makes it even easier to do the day-to-day tasks with features that seemed to be lacking in CS3. The downside is that I usually have to bring Fireworks artwork into Flash to add animation and maintain vector quality before bringing it into Flex. Filters also have to be removed and reapplied in Flex because they don’t translate the way I’d like. From what I’ve seen, Thermo will help solve some of these issues.

Flash

When creating a UI for a Flex/AIR application it’s usually inevitable I’ll be using Flash. I’ll use it to group assets into a single SWF, package up a font, create a complex UI, or add animations. However, it seems I’m beginning to use Flash less and just doing everything right in Flex Builder. Using Tweener and Degrafa I can achieve the results I’m looking for most of the time, but I can’t give Flash up completely yet.

Thermo

We’ve all heard about Thermo and I think it’s going to address a lot of the issues I have with current workflows. It seems Thermo will be the middle application that bridges the gap between CS applications and Flex. Mockups are transformed into working MXML with the help of a designer-friendly environment. This includes converting graphics to working components, adding animations, creating dummy-data sources, and more. The one thing I have yet to see is how the designer/developer collaboration actually works. What happens when a developer makes a change and how does that get reflected on the designer’s side, and vice-versa?

Flex Builder

Every day that I am working I fire up Flex Builder and start plugging away, so of course it’s gonna make it onto my list. From a design-perspective I use Flex to add transitions, bitmap filters, do layout, etc. I’ll jump into Design View or CSS Design View to make sure everything looks the way I want it instead of compiling the application.

Bridge/Version Cue (RIA Edition)

Okay, this is not a real product, but it’s something I see lacking in the current collaboration between designers and developers. Developers are familiar with version control systems like CVS, SVN and the like, but what about designers? How will designers be able to tap into those same repositories to maintain the fluid collaboration? Use a command line, Flex Builder, FTP? Probably not.

I’m thinking it would be great if a familiar application that designers already use, like Bridge or Version Cue, would make it really easy for designers to interact with a repository. Developer’s might cringe at the idea of a designer having that kind of access, but maybe it isn’t direct. If Thermo allows for designers and developers to directly interact with the same code base I think this would be a nice feature. There’d also need to be a way to cycle back and forth with files and probably need to be able to check them in and out.

Degrafa (Not Adobe)

Degrafa is not Adobe, but every project I work on gets Degrafa added to it. Why? Because bitmaps and static vector artwork can only go so far. I make 80-90% of my skins in Degrafa. This allows me to open up any properties of the graphics to CSS, which means one Degrafa Button skin to create an infinite number of variations versus making separate graphics for each variation. There’s things I can do with Degrafa that I can’t with bitmap or static vector graphics and with the the things planned for Degrafa Beta 3, it’s a no brainer.

So, there’s the rundown. It’s a mix of a little present and future, and I’m sure there’s some tool out there that I just don’t know I want yet I’m looking forward to smoother work flows and tighter collaborations between designers and developers. When that happens there’s more time for innovation.

Right now, I don’t have much time to go back and change them all, so I’ll probably do one at a time in between the other stuff I have going on. Since not all of the themes are mine, you may need to contact the authors of other themes to ask about an update, if they are going to do one at all. Until some of the issues have been smoothed out, you can always download the available FLA for some themes and make the tweaks yourself. Or just start making skins using Degrafa

I think anyone who has been a part of the development of an application has questions concerning user experience, especially when working with all that can be done in Flex. If you have any questions along those lines, be sure to check out the newly launched site for Adobe’s Experience Design Team.

The new site was presented during during the “XD: Adobe’s approach to Application Design” and we got a quick overview of the features. There’s great case studies, discussions of principles and patterns, and other content areas that will grow in the coming months.

As mentioned in the session, a site like this has been something that developers have asked for and it’s great to see it all coming together. The new XD site and the newly revamped Adobe Developer Connection are two great sites to add your resources.

I’m definitely looking forward to all the announcements mentioned by Ted Patrick and being able to see what’s in store for the Flex family. Of course, “Thermo” is a part of that, but it seems that’s only one piece.

Recently, I mentioned the new Orange County Flex User Group I’m a part of so I’ll be trying to get in touch with potential members. Also, were just adding a few new features to BrandDoozie that I’m hoping to be able to demo. If you’re interested in seeing it, let me know. And, like everyone else, we’re hiring.

Oh, and if you’re looking to get involved with the User Group Central App [insert cryptic code name] I mentioned in a previous post, I’m trying to get a list together to see if the idea can really take off.

See you at MAX!

The night was great! I got to meet Doug McCune (he tore up the dance floor), Ryan Stewart, Tom Ortega, Ted Patrick, John Wilker, Jeff Houser and so many others I’ve conversed with via email. This is going to be a great conference! If you’re here, don’t forget to say hi.

Jeffry also gave details on a Flex Show contest to win some free copies of Flex 2 with Charting.

Listen to Episode 10 of the Flex Show

Of course, after being asked questions I didn’t have full knowledge of, I had to go find the answer. Here’s a couple things I was able to find regarding some of the discussion topics I didn’t have complete answers to or wasn’t able to go into details.

Digg API Contest:

The Digg API contest

CSS for htmlText in Flex:

HTMLStyle

StyleSheet Class

My workflow:

App Skinning: A Workflow (probably gonna change when I get some CS3 products)

Where I work:

Atomic Curve is where I work. I failed to mention this.