Ted Patrick - Demos & MAX @ Adobe Systems
Note: This is the personal blog of Ted Patrick. The opinions and statements voiced here are my own.
Design an Application like a Movie
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Thursday, June 18, 2009
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11:19 AM
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When an end user steps up to use an application, the whole experience end to end is like a movie. The user does this, then does that, and then that other thing all using various states of an application. Now although different users perform these scenes in different order, designing each scene should be thought about with the same precision as designing a movie scene. We tend not to design around usability like this, instead we think about the raw things the user needs to do rather than the whole scene experience. I keep wondering if an application would be more usable if there were a script written for each scene of the application. Instead of building use cases, you would build a script to visualize the user completing tasks end to end.I find it interesting that both Director and Flash as development paradigms based on non-linear timelines/scenes, more so, Flex and Catalyst have adopted a development paradigm largely based on application states. Thinking about an application in terms of scenes or states can really change the overall usability of your application. How do the states flow together, what does the user during each scene, and do these scenes flow together well?
Adobe recently released a new toolset for scriptwriting called Adobe Story. The toolset is based on Buzzword but is specifically designed for script writing. The hidden agenda of the app is to get scene metadata into a video production workflow at the very start of design which leads to a cool end result over the production whole. I am going to explore designing an application using Adobe Story to see if the paradigm works for application design as well as it does for scene design and scripting.
Regardless of how the experiment turns out, I think my Actors, Roles, and Scenes will be better thought out.
Cheers,
Ted :)
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I really like this post.
In my presentation at Flash on Tap, "Thriving on Flash", I talk about how my education in Film & Television combined with interest in web design/development drew me to Flash. Back then, Flash played out like building/scripting a movie. I pointed out the irony that, in the end, I've been really make movies for 10 years (Crtl + Enter = Make Movie).
I think a bit of this approach got lost on the 'Flex' side, but all in all, developers that deploy quality apps consider the immersive experience for their users.
Keep going with this series of posts. Very valuable insight.
At Flash Camp Orlando, Christian Saylor gave a presentation called "The Art of Storytelling". It was a good insight into how are applications relate to the same concept as filmmaking. View the full preso here:
http://undertheinfluenceofdesign.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/flash-camp-orlando-presentation/
I totally agree Applications should be more like movies! Too much effort/weight is put into development compared to the story of an application. More focus is needed in the story of the application and not technology. Directors are like clients who direct the application to create their vision. Only difference is that clients tend to have less creative control compared to that of a movie director.
I'm looking forward to when functionality takes a back seat to beautiful user design/interaction :-)
I think the comparison to a video game is more adapted. the video game of course compares to a movie, but it's one step further removed
@Ross,
Somehow I don't think that functionality should take a back seat. Granted, it is unfortunate that even if an app is ugly, if it still works, you can use it to accomplish what you need to do. I work with many designers who build beautiful comps. However, they have no functionality. So what good are they? It may as well be a picture (which it often is).
The truth is that functionality will always remain king, but hopefully someday beautiful user design/interaction's seat will only be an inch or two back, or maybe on the same row :)
I think the reality is that design is the new gating factor. You cannot ship an app if it isn't fluid, cinematic in nature, and each state well designed.
Hence design an application like a movie. :)
Ted :)
IMHO in a client point of view an application has to do everything is supposed to do. So the code is supposed to work and be bullet proof.
But great design, cinematic animations, great interaction is a plus.. so client value them a lot.
Is it fair for coders?Probably not...
But in the end, for me, an application is the sum of the energy/knowledge/hardwork/talent of a team, so if the team does a great work:hoooorray for the team!
:)
Im a coder but I never understood the "war" between coders and designers... Keep it together as a team!!
Hi,
i agree wit ariel, that applications should rather be designed with games in mind than movies. The concept of a movie is static. No interaction is considered. I find too many designers thinking in terms of ONE single execution line and forgetting about all the little possibilities of how users could interact with an application. Instead, games are all about constant interaction. Of course, games also follow a general story, but the concept is much more open and incooporates the idea of users constantly giving new input and controlling the situation. For me, this better reflects the needs of applications than the concept of a movie.
Ted,
I would suggest that 80% - 20% separation has to be clarified as it might be used by some as Adobe's recommendation of budget/time allocation and it could be problematic for the current state of the industry.
Less generalized statement IMHO would be this:
In order for applications to be successful in consumer / occasional user market you might need to increase your typical “functionality based” budget few times for usability, design and testing. You will also need to keep lid on features in order to achieve usability and budget constrains.
Applications targeting mobile devices and occasional users on conventional ones are definitely a growing trend that Flash platform is best positioned to take over. Enterprise and niche application will still be out of reach of UX due to budget / features constrains – so the following notes might not apply.
I agree that most of the current design work goes into "packaging" - opening page(s) and a stylesheet and does not affect the quality of the application. I would argue that cinematic experience is much more then design. For example, in the movie industry films based on the beauty and not the character have higher attrition rates and lower retention.
IMHO, there should be stronger distinction between visual design (how it looks) and "interaction" design (how it does things).
People will adapt to anything that is simple and easy to understand. Current UX wave is driven by people who have taste, and it is easy to acquire over time - even by developers. Time is of essence here - developers just need the same tools and schedule as the rest of the team rather then cram their time toward the end of the project. In my experience it takes less then 6 month for a developer moved from PC to OSX to “forget” old way of doing things and acquire the same taste for simplicity the designers historically enjoy by using “designers” products. Adobe developers have long history of using non-Microsoft systems and it is definitely reflected in the way the build applications with or without designers.
At this point any serious Flex developer working on "consumer" project must have training in "Design" to the extent that they can modify Photoshop / Illustrator or Flash files to annotate/fix a design flaw and communicate it properly to the designers. That implies to a large extent that 60-80% of the overall time is still in the development as developers extended their reach into modern UI. It also greatly reduces overall project time and miscommunications. I certainly hope that Catalyst will be bridging the gap for the rest, but expect mixed results if people would not expose themselves significantly to the “other side”. Finally, as client becomes “simple” and “intuitive” more work needs to be done on the server to prepare and support that “predictable” and “intuitive” behavior.
I lived through few projects of complete picture perfect designs made upfront. Unfortunately, those static pictures are full of holes. Good developers are just as good as good designers in interactivity and much better with data models and overall process. In the end, negligible percentage of the picture perfect upfront design is usually usable and could be counterproductive for the project lifecycle as compared to conventional wireframes as a common ground. Only from common understanding (the more visual the better, but not ONLY visual – you need to make sure it is also in words so you can ensure common understanding, provide comments and establish two-way process) you can start real team work.
Sincerely,
Anatole Tartakovsky
Farata Systems