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Showing posts tagged web design

The End of Fireworks CS

Surely you saw this coming?

I heard the rumors, but I was exhaling in relief, taking in the news of the launch of Adobe CC packages and working out how much I could get the latest Fireworks for per month, when I saw the first tweets come in about the announcement.

Now before you write me off as another jaded Fireworks fanboy, which maybe I am. I used to use and still do love Photoshop. It was one of the most used and most comfortable pieces of software I have ever used. I knew more keyboard shortcuts than I collectively know for any of my other software.

I even wrote about my experience with moving to Fireworks. Moving over hasn’t been straightforward and I haven’t attained the same oneness and flow that I had with Photoshop. But with that in mind, and this I do share this with the Fireworks evangelists, it was THE tool for web and ui design. Fireworks wins, not Photoshop, unquestionably for me.

I can see where they are coming from

I can see an argument from Adobes point of view in that they cant control the market and push or force designers to use Fireworks. Why would or should they? The market practically dictates that Photoshop is the tool for web designing. That remaining the case, I can see it makes no sense for them to continue to maintain two products with an overlap of feature, fighting for the same customer base.

However…

If I were feeling cynical, and I am. It could be that Fireworks ability to cover many bases made it a target. It enabled easy wireframing, vector  and limited bitmap editing, [basic] html and css output.

Adobe thou wants you on the highest tier they can push you to. Take away Fw and you have to start thinking about other specific packages to tackle those tasks. You now need the expensive tier for that.

There was a future where Adobe made THE ultimate web designers tool it may not even have been Fireworks - but evolved from it. Now its likely to be a collection of apps. I dont mind Creative Cloud, its clearly the way forward. But this feels like it was a step backward. 

So are you going back to Photoshop?

I still need to do some thinking, but I think Adobe would have to make Muse more Pro focused to give a Fireworks feel and I might be interested in that. I could go back to Photoshop I guess.

Sketch, by Bohemian Coding, is starting to look much more appealing too. I can adjust.

Goodbye Fireworks.

fastcompany: 5 Ways To Thrive During Marketing’s Seismic Shift To Mobile  During SXSW, major brands convened to discuss how to move forward with mobile. Urban Airship’s Scott Kveton outlines the key trends and strategies that emerged and provides examples of brands adding value via mobile. What is increasingly clear is that mobile will confound the cookie-cutter campaign creator, bother the bulk emailer, and annoy broad-audience advertisers. Brands that rely on traditional, one-way mass media must completely re-engineer their approach for mobile, because when customers perceive marketing as an interruption, they take immediate action to tune you out. Find your value in your customers’ lives. Engage each customer in the key moments of their day. Deliver value based on location. Allow customers to personalize their experience to gain relevance. Don’t sell to your customers: entertain, engage, and delight them. Read more here.

fastcompany:

5 Ways To Thrive During Marketing’s Seismic Shift To Mobile 

During SXSW, major brands convened to discuss how to move forward with mobile. Urban Airship’s Scott Kveton outlines the key trends and strategies that emerged and provides examples of brands adding value via mobile.

What is increasingly clear is that mobile will confound the cookie-cutter campaign creator, bother the bulk emailer, and annoy broad-audience advertisers. Brands that rely on traditional, one-way mass media must completely re-engineer their approach for mobile, because when customers perceive marketing as an interruption, they take immediate action to tune you out.

  1. Find your value in your customers’ lives.
  2. Engage each customer in the key moments of their day.
  3. Deliver value based on location.
  4. Allow customers to personalize their experience to gain relevance.
  5. Don’t sell to your customers: entertain, engage, and delight them.

Read more here.

decodering: 14 lousy web design trends that are making a comeback due to HTML5 Make no bones about it, HTML5 design is a massive, musty elephant in the room, and it is about to charge. In its path lies a flailing, unarmed Jakob Nielsen, backed up with legions of user experience professionals, who are gently sobbing. The article lists: Loading screens Hidden navigation Making demands Images used for text Contrast fail Dubious animation Mystery meat icons Missing pages Bossy browser behaviour Tiny fonts Lame pop-ups Autoplay A smorgasbord of irritation Boring content delays And ends with some common sense recommendations.

decodering:

14 lousy web design trends that are making a comeback due to HTML5

Make no bones about it, HTML5 design is a massive, musty elephant in the room, and it is about to charge. In its path lies a flailing, unarmed Jakob Nielsen, backed up with legions of user experience professionals, who are gently sobbing.

The article lists:

  1. Loading screens
  2. Hidden navigation
  3. Making demands
  4. Images used for text
  5. Contrast fail
  6. Dubious animation
  7. Mystery meat icons
  8. Missing pages
  9. Bossy browser behaviour
  10. Tiny fonts
  11. Lame pop-ups
  12. Autoplay
  13. A smorgasbord of irritation
  14. Boring content delays

And ends with some common sense recommendations.

Much Content? A script to display the percentage of page content vs comments. See a massive scroll bar when you visit a page? ‘Much Content?’, is piece of javascript that can display how much of the page is content vs comments. Great for turning into a browser add-on or bookmarklet, or for site owners to inform people of their content breakdown. Check it out on my codepen.

Much Content?

A script to display the percentage of page content vs comments.

See a massive scroll bar when you visit a page? ‘Much Content?’, is piece of javascript that can display how much of the page is content vs comments. Great for turning into a browser add-on or bookmarklet, or for site owners to inform people of their content breakdown.

Check it out on my codepen.

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