On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Petroff, Greg <[email protected]> wrote:
> If you are working with Air or Silverlight ... where do you think it's > going? What is the current state of the tools? There yet? Not? How do we > see these changing what we do? > Well, I'm pretty familiar with Silverlight. That's what we built Quince<http://sn.im/quince-intro>, our UX design patterns explorer, on, and I'm the lead author on Wrox Silverlight 3, a programmer's reference (not geared at designers, but we do cover aspects of design--our director of visual design, Grant Hinkson, is a co-author and writes on that)--due to be released early this summer, barring unforeseen surprises. :) Personally, I think the foreseeable future of software applications for desktop/laptop and, eventually, mobile and other devices is Silverlight/AIR. It'll take a while for us to get there, but they're just waay more solid platforms to build on than HTML+CSS+JS, which were not designed for rich interactive stuff (although I am impressed what we've [the software industry] been able to do with those technologies). As far as tooling for Silverlight goes, the foundations are certainly there--VS for devs and Blend for technically-adept designers. I think VS is pretty solid for the devs already, though I think most devs don't want to have to go to another tool for an effective design experience (doubtless that problem will be solved in the not-too-distant future). Even though the tools for SL (and AIR) are still young--babies--I still maintain that we could not have produced Quince or (more importantly) maintain and enhance it as effectively had we chosen Ajax as our platform. I can tell you from personal experience and from my knowledge of many devs that the majority of devs will (or already do) vastly prefer a more reliable platform on the client (like Silverlight). It's just ridiculous how much head-banging-on-desk they have to do for HTML et al, and the tools are flaky at best (even though they and browsers are light years better these days). >From a designer perspective, you will be empowered to explore more interaction possibilities than are available with Ajax, which sounds like something you want to do, not just in terms of technology/platform capabilities but just in the lower cost for making those kinds of potentially richer interactions available in the end product. These (SL/AIR) ameliorate the feasibility design constraint. In terms of recommendations, there are many factors to consider. What is your team's background--what technologies and tools are they most productive with today? That's one, potentially big factor in choosing. Sadly, there are also prejudices/bigotry that you may bump up against as well, both on teams and with some users. Then of course there's the target audience, which is the most critical factor--will they have or be willing to install the necessary plug-ins? As for being outside the browser, Microsoft announced at MIX09 that Silverlight 3 does support out of browser experiences. I can confirm this from experience--you can get the beta today if you want. Blend 3 also has some interesting improvements for designers, but I leave it to individuals to judge if it is non-technical enough for their tastes/capabilities. I can't speak so much for AIR, but I can say that IMO the future is very bright for Silverlight, and I recommend it as a de facto platform to do new work on and then move away from it as needed given the other considerations for particular teams, target audiences, and problem domains. Maybe the big bummer is the mobile story right now. I think it's the next big battleground for software (if it isn't already!). It will be fun to see how it all works out, but also a bit painful for those of us trying to build great stuff in the meantime.. Hope this helps. --Ambrose ________________________________________________________________ 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
