I recently attended Kansas City’s first D2WC Designer/Developer Workflow Conference. The conference not only emphasized workflow but also skills and philosophies around design and development. I attended sessions that focused on CS5, JavaScript, design philosophy, integrating art and code, prototypes, and mobile design.
The first session I attended was the keynote by Doug Winnie. He emphasized the new Adobe products that assist in designer and developer workflow. Adobe’s CS Review enables designers and developers the ability to post files for client feedback and create comments for internal reviews. Users can post web-links and it provides easy client access online. This program keeps comments in one area and enables comments to be more specific. For example, the person receiving feedback can see comments highlighted in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, which creates clarity for the designer. Doug also discussed Adobe’s Flash Catalyst, which works well with Illustrator or Photoshop and enables file transfer to be much easier from designer to developer. Adobe’s Workflow Lab Beta 2 can track how a project evolved and how to make adjustments for the next project. It is a way to plan workflow that adds tasks based upon each designer’s or developer’s visual discipline requirements. This program can have assets work together and creates paths of where files are on the network. I like that this program shows what everyone on the team is currently working on and what tools they are currently using to create the project.
The next session I attended was Kevin Stohlmeyer Fast Web Design with Adobe Creative Suite. c2gps.com I learned that the new CS5 Fireworks allows designers to save out CSS files along with HTML and instructs how to create Adobe Bridge Output to Web Galleries for professional design reviews with clients. Seb Lee-Delisle’s “Killing the “transition” – True integration between art and code” was inspiring. pluginmedia.net He was a wonderful speaker and very charismatic. Collaboration and prioritization are key to a project’s success. His discussion on workflow made it very apparent that designers and developers need to have a shared workspace that has file version control. Through using templates that are worked on by designer and coder up front, the designer can solve visual problems independently. In the hallway of his office, he has a physical chart where designers and developers can place post-its of where they are currently at with their individual milestones for the project. For example, “waiting,” “in progress,” and “complete” are written down along with the hours it will take to finish the task. There is something very powerful about having a physical object that one must write on and that is placed on the wall for all to see.
Chris Griffith’s Practical Design and Development with Flash on Mobile and Devices was informative, discussing how to design for mobile technology. chrisgriffith.wordpress.com I learned that it is better to start all UI design in a vector rather than bitmap format, 8 bit PNGs are the standard graphic choice when saving out files and that gradients often have banding.
Rob Huddleston Adobe Flash Catalyst and Flex for Designers emphasized how there is currently complete “round tripping” from Illustrator to Catalyst but not from Photoshop to Catalyst. robhuddleston.com The beauty of Catalyst is that one can remove all of the assumptions of what things “have to” look like and don’t worry about positioning. However, Catalyst is a resource hog and is a fixed size; it is a 1.0 product so one has to keep that in mind. One must design for interactivity, animation and video, but remember to not overuse interactivity. As with any project, Catalyst requires users to stay organized, use a naming convention, keep the naming consistent, layer names with underscore and create outlines for text with uncommon fonts that are non-dynamic.
Next, I attended Ryan Jeffords-“JavaScript Libraries for Designers and Developers.” epicenterconsulting.com I wanted to learn more about JavaScript and Ajax in order to fully understand what kinds of constraints there are and what the possibilities can be for endless creativity. In a nutshell, Ajax enables one to do two or more things at once. It is important for designers to be able to properly prototype/design and indicate JS functionality. One of its core features is page searching and modifying specific elements on the page. Another is event handling and binding, which locks code to an event. The developer is in charge of what can happen on the page, e.g. a rollover that has a pop-up. Triggering allows developers to fire events whenever desired. One can program things to happen vs. not, e.g. checking a box without actually checking the box it checks when you hit another button. Ryan emphasized that Ajax changes everything we know about the web. It gets data without telling the user or can tell the user it is getting data. For example, Mac’s spinning beach ball. jQuery UIs provide a comprehensive set of core interaction plug-ins, UI widgets and visual effects that use a jQuery-style, event-driven architecture and a focus on web standards, accessibility, flexible styling, and user-friendly design. Ryan emphasized that the sky’s the limit, use pen and paper to start with and then create a prototype and wireframe. Listed are some useful website that Ryan provided: jquery.com, jqueryui.com, prototypejs.org, and sencha.com.
I think what I get the most excited about when attending conferences is that I have the ability right when I get back into the office to start forming and creating the techniques and methods I have learned. It is wonderful to see that once they are put into practice, they work. It is amazing what one can learn in just two short days. I think this philosophy by Vince Vaughan is for many things in life: “Think about the outcome you want to produce and design for it.”
