Pet Theory

Flex 4 a.k.a. Gumbo will treat the major pain point in Flex development–the workflow between designers and developers–by allowing Flexers to easily make complete, detailed component skins as well as non-standard interactions and effects.

And what about Flex design? Will it be impacted? It’ll be a year or more before we know, but this post makes two predictions:

1. Flex designer will fulfill the old unfulfilled dream of Flash designers that UI will become more game-like. Flex will also supplant a lot of Flash development while still avoiding Flashiness.

2. More important, Flex designers after Gumbo will focus on incorporating the best of hypertext, the dominant and transformative mode of the web that Flash and Flex designers tend to discount. More… »

Flash releases tend to operate on the each-kid-gets-a-turn principle: one for the developers, one for the designers. After reading this article on Gumbo component article, however, I think Christmas might be come early at Adobe. Because if designers will luv Gumbo’s new skinning model, developers will luv luv luv the new component architecture. More… »

A self-evident interface is always Plan A…but a self-explaining interface is a decent Plan B. Here is one in action. (Follow the purple arrow…not optimized for start up yet.)

“As simple as possible, but no simpler.” For my current Flex project I reached this point pretty quickly. Inspired by improv, it is a chat site that creatively orders group chat. There are roles (Host, Quizzer, Conservative, Blind Date, etc.) for a variety of scenarios, mostly drawn from pop culture. Chatterers vote for a scenario leader, who plays one role and picks others for the remaining roles.

For a game, it’s not complicated. For an interface, it is. Some sort of help was required. More… »

Until I looked at Flex this weekend, I didn't believe Jesse Warden when he predicted that Flex would retire Flash into a Director-like, niche position.

Well, now I believe. And I feel a pang for Flash. Not because I give a damn about the technology–there will always be another technology–but because I hoped Flash would be a uniquely powerful tool for creating new kinds of interfaces, whether in art, education, or entertainment.

I don't know Flex at all, really, but I've seen enough to know that its strength relies on HTML-like standardization of interface components. Sure, I bet (though I don't know) that Flex is a great tool for fashioning new components, and high-level AS coders will be able to find work tweaking Flex and bringing it beyond itself…but that won't go to the essential strength of Flex.

Standardization is a win-win for developer and users: develops can develop more quickly, and a la Nielsen, users can use more quickly.

So what's to gripe about? Nothing, I suppose. In the years since Flash 5, when complex interfaces became possible, has Flash become a great font of interface innovation? For instance, what has the opportunity to create your own widgets added to the broader vocabulary of interfaces?

The preloader progress bar used in iTunes music store? Occasional spasms of industry self-congratulation notwithstanding, there's little to celebrate.

What's to conclude from this failure? Well…the people who specced out HTML really hit the nail on the head. (When something Flex-like kills HTML, we should say, the king is dead, long live the king.)

Or…progress in interfaces is much, much slower than progress in technology, because it's cultural. Designers have to get beyond their assumptions, and users have to form new expectations.

Unfortunately, after Flex, the institutional impetus for innovation will be momentarily stalled. Flash developers will become Flex RIA developers, HTML will get tweened transitions…and the Flash designers left behind will be the least able to deal with interactivity.

Just to be obnoxious, I'll designate their Flash "L.A. Flash" because it is mostly produced by advertising agencies and movie studios. It's basically Flash meant for broadcast. One damn thing after another.

When I was at the Jobstock (that's a L.A. Flash job fair), all the employers that presented said they required Flashers who avoid "flashturbation" and thought interactively…then went on to show their material, which was 99% "flasturbation" with a pinch of interactivity.

I don't blame them; it's especially difficult for people who think in pictures or moving pictures to think in interaction…but it's hard for ANYONE to think in interaction. We are at the beginning, I think.

One slight reason for hope is the pressure that On2 and broadband will put on Flash designers. So much of what they do is basically crappy faux video…but when Flash can port high-quality video over broadband, what's the point? Let the After Affects people do their thing…and then Flash designers can focus more on interaction, and hope their best work will be integrated into Flex.

I have to admit that the official description of Flex always left my head spinning with buzzwords and corporate breathlessness: RIA…bundled technologies…enterprise scale…presentation tier…standards-based.

It took this short video (the Kuwamoto one), in which a Macdobe engineer builds (in about 15 minutes) a visually arresting application that searches Flickr and fades in the resulting pictures, to bring me to face to face with the astonishing truth of Flex.

After seeing this promotional video, I bet that Flex will ultimately displace HTML, whether "Flex" remains an Adobe technology, or is superceded by a rival company's technology or (optimally) an open-source format.

Why? Because it's EASY. I'm sure that it's not as easy as that engineer made it look, but I'm sure it's not much harder, either.

Here's a rough cheatsheet on Flex:

MXML (the XML markup language that produces swfs in Flex Builder)==HTML
Actionscript==Javascript + (parts of PHP and CSS)

If you focus on the differences between MXML and HTML (like, you know, MXML is worlds more powerful), you miss the point of the comparison: MXML seems as easy as HTML to learn (WYSIWYG-able mark-up) and develop (a stable set of components, a quick way to permutate swfs).

Yes, Flash Made Easy does make sense for "desktop on the web" (no page refresh, resizable windows) and enterprise-scale projects (dynamically generating different swfs, like PHP dynamically generates HTML)…but looking at this video, I sensed a more grandiose ambition.

If Flash can be made this simple, why can't Flash be made simple enough to fit into Dreamweaver, and the power of connected multimedia be made available to individuals and small companies? That seems like the logical next step.