Archive for June, 2009

Jun
17/09

Interview with Fireworks Designer, Tom Okeefe

Last Updated on Thursday, 18 June o 01:23
Written by Alan Musselman
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Where do you work and what keeps you busy?

When I’m not at Langley training for my next mission I’ve been working at my studio on interactive design, application visual design, mobile phone apps, user interface, logos and yes brand identity. Lately I’ve been designing Flex apps with my friends over at Twin Technologies.

What type of project are we showcasing today where Adobe Fireworks was used in the process?

I pulled together a few samples of some web sites and applications I’ve designed. I used Fireworks on all visual design for web design; applications and U.I. Some project identities have been hidden on grounds that they may leave my Spymaster ring.

victoriasecrets

zap1

wx_vd

wx_ui

wx2

twintech

sch1

Are there features in Adobe Fireworks that saved you time and money?

So many features in Fireworks saves time, I don’t know where to begin. Having pages and shared layers by it self could be more than enough for anyone to jump on board. Having master pages with the option of using frames for multiple masters is a huge time saver. PDF Export saves me time for providing click-able wire frames (when not using Flash Catalyst). Rich symbols are kick ass and love how it’s improved in CS4. Smart alignment saves me time. Having Kuler integrated into all Adobe products is killer and yes saves me time. Illustrator integration. Smart Guides, Tabbed documents, Common Library, Text symbols, custom symbols and styles. I can list so many features that save time and oh don’t get me started with the almighty spymaster himself “Starman”.

What current web related technologies are most favored when designing and developing for the web?

I use Adobe Fireworks every day for design. If my computer is on Fireworks is open. It’s that simple.

How many successful assassinations have you made in Spymaster private beta?

Sorry but that’s classified information. I’ve assassinated a lot of those no good dirty rotten spy’s. I know if I let that information out I could get charged with torture and war crimes. Next question please…

Do you remember your “Aha” moment you had experienced when first opening up Adobe Fireworks?

To be honest I didn’t have an “Aha” moment. I had a “Holy shit I have to use this application?” moment.

When I first started as an Adobe Consultant I was handed my first project for a visual design for a flex application. The wire frames were done in Fireworks. The .png had hundreds of screens with dozens of frames (before pages). I hated life. So after annoying the hell out of the Creative Director at the time “Sorry Simon Smith” and Design Managers “Sorry Jerry Knight” and many emails to the Adobe UX team “Thanks Peter Baird” I was able to snap right into it and I never went back to Photoshop. It then started my mission in life to convert spies to Fireworks. I mean Designers. I think I need to stop playing spymaster. J

Are you involved with any communities on the web?

Twitter, Behance, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Tribe, and others.

Do you have a place on the web you call home? Where can we find you?

http://blog.mycardmywork.com/

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Jun
11/09

Interview with Fireworks Designer, Andrew Peters

Last Updated on Thursday, 11 June o 11:47
Written by Alan Musselman
Thursday, June 11th, 2009

Where do you work and what keeps you busy?

I am the User Experience Director at UE Architects, Inc. in San Francisco’s South Park. We design web sites, mobile apps and platforms. Our services range from user experience strategy – defining product features to match user needs – to interface and interaction design, and branding. We’ve been using Fireworks since 1998, and designing for the web since 1995 and mobile since 2000. We’re busy designing wireframes and interactive prototypes with Fireworks so the system can be experienced early and often.

What type of project are we showcasing today where Adobe Fireworks was used in the process?

We are currently using Fireworks to design mobile apps. The latest project to be released is a social networking app for the Palm Pre – one of the first 18 included in last week’s launch. Designing for the Palm’s WebOS is incredibly easy utilizing our template of symbols and UI conventions.

But we’ll showcase another project that already has a case study: Yahoo Tech. See our case study. Yahoo Tech is essentially CNET for the non-techie – where you could send your mom to figure out which camera to buy. We used Fireworks to design all the wireframes and interactive prototypes used in usability testing. The wireframes (interface design without hi-fi visual design) are very detailed, clearly illustrating key interactions. Fireworks enabled tight collaboration with our user experience designers to quickly iterate on this large site. This site was innovative for Yahoo as it was one of the first Yahoo sites to use dynamic, AJAX, in-page interactions.

Are there features in Adobe Fireworks that saved you time and money?

I love Fireworks because it’s incredibly fast. I’ve been a Fireworks evangelist for years, slowly converting Photoshop users as they finally realize how much faster and more intuitive FW is. It’s so fast that I’m often updating designs while I’m still on a conference call with clients, and can immediately show them new directions on our extranet.

Fireworks has been designed with interface designer’s project workflows in mind. And CS4 is getting even better (except for the lingering bugs). The greatest time savers are symbols, styles, navigating through pages, and easy prototyping and exporting. Using symbols has been especially helpful for mobile interface design. And fast linking and exporting turn wireframes into truly interactive prototypes in just minutes. Often clients think their site or app is done when they first use a prototype – it’s very effective. So, all this saves time – which is money, and better yet, enables us to design better products. We learn so much from interacting with prototypes and observing how real users use it.

What current web related technologies are most favored when designing and developing for the web?

We ONLY use Fireworks to design interface wireframes. Some of our designers still use Photoshop for visual design, but many have converted to Fireworks. With Fireworks’ new text engine and tighter integration with other Adobe products, producing assets in Fireworks should be as good as Photoshop (text wasn’t as good as Photoshop in the past).

Our primary focus is in user experience strategy and design. So, we define the product’s features and how it works, and the interfaces. We work with our tech partners for development. Still, we are very active in development, especially as web sites are behaving more like applications. Our prototypes usually direct development, so we don’t get lost in technologies.

Do you remember your “Aha” moment you had experienced when first opening up Adobe Fireworks?

1998. Fireworks just seemed so much more tangible, intuitive and faster than Photoshop. I was sold immediately and never looked back. It seemed that finally there was a tool made for the job as opposed to hacking through Photoshop in the mid 90s. It was so nice to be able to draw in vectors for bitmap output, grab anything without having to navigate layers, and iterate on designs so much faster. This enables us to iterate much more = better designs.

Are you involved with any communities on the web?

iXDA, BayCHI, LinkedIn, Facebook, Meetup, Twitter and some lists with other user experience designers. I use a lot of social networks since we’ve been designing social networks and collaborative sites for the past 10 years.

Do you have a place on the web you call home? Where can we find you?

http://ueArchitects.com

I’m also a travel photographer, published in Lonely Planet and National Geographic.

Photo site: http://CinemaScope.com