Author: ARSpaulding

A great example of the discovery process to design

Posted on by ARSpaulding

When talking with someone who is interested in having me as their designer, some of the first things that I do is ask a million questions about the intent and the business that the design is to be representing.  Quite often, the person (or people) that I’m talking with don’t quite have a vision of everything that they need and/or want and that’s when the questions become fairly deeply digging to determine not only the “what” but everything that has to do with the design.

About 2 years ago, I went through this with the company that I am still working for when they decided to switch the software that their IT Servicedesk reps used on a daily basis to log their service requests.  Though the company had a fairly good handle on what the business needed, they didn’t quite have everything nailed down and that was where I was brought in to assist with the layout of the screens.  They’re not really “pretty” as the software that they chose isn’t really capable of anything remotely close to pretty, but the entire workflow  prioritization was discovered as were many other elements that were previously not possible with the old software that now, 2 years later, are still in place and used hundreds of time on a daily basis for the location of quick information while also providing the functionality for call logging and tracking.

This same process is discussed  in the link below – its a pretty well written article on the process that they went through with their client.  If you’re interested in reading just what goes into the discovery process of design, this would be a great article to read.

Blend 3's conversions from Photoshop

Posted on by ARSpaulding

I’ve been so caught up in what I’ve been working on that I’ve not really stopped to post much about my experiences with this newly released preview of the Expression Blend series.

Blend 3 has a whole lot of new shiny features.  From the ability to see where the gradient stops are right ON the object itself as well as the ability to move them actively on that object, to the 3-axis 2.5D manipulation of objects for Silveright 3 – this new release to Blend is definitely one that’ll set someone off balance for a while to get used to the newer product.

There are 2 new features that I’d like to dedicate this post to.  The ability to have blend directly consume Photoshop and Illustrator files.

I’ll start with photoshop and its importability.  In some cases, I’ll pop into Photoshop for its flexibility and quickly design an interface or graphic.  Blend still has a quirk where paths are being manipulated that drives me to having a litter of kittens, so I’ll sometimes do my pathing in photoshop or illustrator, depending on what else I’ll be doing with the comp.

Well I recently had a project where I did just that – for Something Spacial.  I created the comp in photoshop and decided to use the blend Import tool for Photoshop Documents (PSD) and though it was nice to get a head-start in laying everything out in blend – it still didn’t give enough of one.  I ended up needing to create many of my pathed elements new because they didn’t quite import retaining the integrety of the object into blend.  My gradients were missing, the paths were disjointed, and did I mention my gradients?

There was a lot of work put in and I think I would have spent less time had I just created it all from scratch.  I do like that they’ve added the feature, but I think that the story of most software releases with new features applies – the first release isn’t always the best release.  I’ll be optimistic and say that they’ve gotten quite a great feature started, and I can’t wait for the next itteration or two where the full features are realized and implemented as well as honed to near perfection.

The illustrator file import tool I haven’t had as much real-time experience with and part of it is that I’ve been reluctant.  I already have a really nice plugin created that can export my illustrator files, maintaining full integrety of the object, and directly porting it into xaml.  It works well, a little messy on the XAML side, so I’ve had to clean that up a bit, but otherwise, everything maintained full design integrity.  So why risk it by using the import tool?

Once I get the latest SDK pack for Silverlight 3 installed, I’ll blog about the illustrator import.

Silverlight 3 – its out already?

Posted on by ARSpaulding

For the past 2, maybe 3 months, there has been this war (mostly in my own head) – will something be done in Silverlight 2 or Silverlight 3?  Can it wait for release?  Will it benefit to be done in silverlight 3?  Of course, the release seemed so dang far out that I’d try to make as much work in Silverlight 2

Understanding the features and the limitations as well as the strengths between the two, Silverlight 2 and Silverlight 3, also assisted with this but when it came down to it, the majority of projects that I’ve been working on have been Silverlight 3, Silverlight 3, and oh – Silverlight 3.

Except it hadn’t yet released! 

Well finally – it has.  Uninstalling all of the prior software and then installing the Developer verison of Silverlight 3 (yes, there is a different version for the runtime, or so I’ve found) has been done and now I’m ready to rock out with the released Silveright 3 – and there is a newer version to install than what had been up on the development site 2 weeks ago, so if you haven’t already, be sure to get it… and cringe as you find that many of the things that you’ve been working on likely have broken…

On a less personal note, check out the new official silverlight website.  I hear one of the local (to the Seattle, WA region) studios, Identity mine, created the lovely floaty image thing on the site.  Only thing that I wish could be done on there is to have more of the images clickable.  So few of them can be interacted with beyond the mouse motion!

In any event, go check it out: http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight

It Keeps Me Awake and Drives Me Out of Bed

Posted on by ARSpaulding

In a recently published article on BNet.com, they say that the most important lists are the ones that answer the two questions:

1) Things that Keep Me Up All Night

2) Reasons I Get Up in the Morning

To answer the 1st and the 2nd, I just recently had been thinking on this very subject.  Number one on this list used to be gaming.  I used to be able to play a good engaging problem solving type of video game that was done well that challenged me for quite a long time – sometimes through to the next day, but times change – I’ve changed.

In 2004 I discovered something that drove me like nothing else that I’ve ever experienced and nothing else since.  Design – not just graphics design, but the entire implementation of it.  I know, this seems a little pointed given that this is my blog site about my experience in design, but it was then in 2004 that I spent 3 days non-stop creating web interfaces for a website that at that time was pretty huge with hundreds of millions of visitors a day.  I’d spend days without sleep, forgetting to eat or even to go to the bathroom, designing and implementing “Skins” as I called them back then, to the forums, image galleries, and front page layout of this popular gaming network website, and it wasn’t just the graphics.  The layout, the typography, the implementation of the logo in creative ways while still maintaining a signature style.  It was my kung fu and… years later now – I look back and really don’t consider much of that work to have been all that good compared to what I can do now – but back then I thought it was brilliant.

That feeling hasn’t gone away.  Any time the company that I work for puts me on a new project, I get that “zing” where my brain is churning on a never ending cycle of problem, solution, problem, solution until I find the optimal pattern to go with and then I go after it and make it happen.  The design comps, the excruciating waiting process while I mentally rehearse the various ways to present the comps and explanations for the various implamentation methods, then once the business decides on what they want to go with, the sitting down at the computer, cranking up the perfect music that I will almost not even hear, but is required regardless – and then the implementation to markup and making it come to life and the entire brain-sucking mind-trance enducing work and joy of seeing everything begin to come together.

That is the good stuff.  That’s what keeps me awake, and when I go to bed, I dream about the work and wake up and am immediately in a mental state of problem solving and project planning.  What needs to be implemented next?  What can’t I wait to get to and to see come to life?  What is still fuzzy that I just know will gain clarity as the project gets closer to completion?

Its good.

The design, the project, and the entire process and discussion and implementation.  I just don’t know anything else that can keep me so whole-body focussed.  I love it.

Very funny blog on a design firm website

Posted on by ARSpaulding

A friend of mine just recently had an interview at a local design firm in Seattle, and just for the heck of it, I decided to check out the company’s web presence.  Now, I’m quite impressed with the far reaches they have established in the user experience market, but what tickled me the most was a blog titled Microwave for the Masses, ok, a little tag line to stir the interest: Thermonuclear Hotpockets. 

Genius, hillarious – read it.  Seriously.

MixView UX discussion at Tomorrow's SeattleD2ig meeting

Posted on by ARSpaulding

For those of you who are new to reading my blog, I’m one of the coordinators for the local interaction group, Seattle D2ig, or written out fully, the Seattle Developer / Designer Interaction Group.

The group meets once a month, typically the 3rd wednesday of every month, and the purpose behind the group is to share experiences between developers and designers and foster a greater level of understanding across the two groups.  Every month we have a different speaker and we’ve had many different presentations every month since the group started, from iphone development and design, to Silverlight and Flash/Flex presentations and many others that fit in between.

This month’s speaker will be Rochelle Benavides who is going to talk about her work with the ever popular Zune MixView.

So join us in Bellevue at 7pm on Wednesday the 17th. 

Please note: These are very casual meetings that tend to last anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half and there are a group of us that often hit up a local restaurant afterwards for food and drinks afterwards.

For more information, visit SeattleD2ig.org