On Jan 23, 2008, at 9:22 AM, Jim Jeffers wrote: > Jason Santa Maria posted an excellent rant on his blog about the lack > of a solid design application for creating GUIs. Most of us jump > through hoops to accomplish our designs in traditional art programs > such as Photoshop or Illustrator. Does anyone here share similar > frustrations or have any lesser known solutions they use as an > alternative?
I'm always frustrated, in case that wasn't obvious. 8^) There were many times at Adobe that I attempted to try and get something like this started. But the answer from executives was always the same: There isn't enough market opportunity to justify the product. Meaning, if you could only find 20,000 people who needed the product, and sold it for $500, your gross would be $10M. That's nothing for software products these days. It needs to be in the $50M to $100M range. That may no longer be true. Let's hope that is the case. Are there a 100,000 designers out there that define themselves as interface designers or interaction+visual designers or digital designers that would pay $500 for such a product? Again, let's hope so. Otherwise, getting it to happen is going to be a long uphill battle. Also, I would frame the product's main direction and market opportunity as a "screen design" application that requires interface and interaction features. Screen design is the broader term I think that can apply to people needing to design traditional software or browser based interfaces, with those that design kiosks, atm machines, and the new brand of displays that will be built into more general appliances that have digital components, like internet refrigerators and such. In other words, the tool would need to work elegantly for the person who does both the visual and interaction design, or as a shared tool between the person doing the visuals and the one doing the interaction. It really can't be one or the other, and I think that's partly why Jason is complaining, the tools don't blend the right set of features for the kind of work screen design requires. (And he's right.) Sidenote: Microsoft is attempting to blur the lines here by making Expression this interface design product with a broader reach for both interface designers along with general design work, from my understanding, I haven't looked at it in the last 9 months and need to. I think the problem they are going to have is tying it too much to Microsoft technologies, amongst other things. Although the team behind Expression is one of the few teams on the planet that could actually pull it off since the driving force behind the team are ex- Adobe folks who know a more than most about the product space. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
