We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire...
Give us the tools and we will finish the job.
- Sir Winston Churchill
I am writing to request that the HCII consider using Macromedia Flash in its courses, including Interface and Interaction Design (05650) and Programming Usable Interfaces (05430) instead of Macromedia Director. Both tools allow students to quickly build visually-appealing interactive prototypes. The specific software is secondary to the design problem-solving skills learned in the classroom, yet the software students learn becomes an important part of their toolkit. As an industry-focused masters program, it makes sense for the department to select the most powerful and popular tools currently on the market. While Macromedia Director was initially more advanced, it has been eclipsed in functionality, ease of use, and popularity by Flash.
Why Flash over Director?
1. It’s better for students:
a. Flash’s smaller files are easier to put in a web portfolio
Flash is vector-based and produces significantly smaller files than its bitmap-based cousin Director
Director projects with music, interfaces, and pictures quickly balloon to hundreds of megabytes while the 3-minute Flash-based MHCI video is less than 4 megs.
b. Flash offers equal if not greater programming options
Prior to version 5, Flash was programmatically inferior to Director ; it is now more powerful.
Flash’s programming language ActionScript has supports for variables, loops, event based programming, OOP, XML and has an excellent IDE with code auto-complete. ActionScript is based on the industry-standard JavaScript which can be leveraged in other web development projects
c. Easier to use
This may be a contentious point but I found Flash’s hierarchical-object model with independent timelines easier to understand and simpler to control when trying to design complex behaviors.
2. More people can view it
According to Macromedia, in September 2002 only 62.6% of web users could view Director files (through Shockwave) as opposed to 97.8% for Flash files.
3. More developers/programmers use it
Macromedia Flash has 7 times more hits on Google than Macromedia Director (906,000 vs.123,000). Independent internet developer sites like Devx.com have more articles on Flash than Director (117 vs. 0). Even graphic design magazines like Computer Arts have a preponderance of Flash article (78 vs. 16).
4. There are more jobs available developing for it
Consider the number of job descriptions that mention Flash vs. Director at popular career search sites:
Flash Director
Dice.com 92 13
Monster.com 591 49
Flipdog.com 200+ 73
CHI-Jobs archives 29 7
as of
Conclusion
Gaining additional design experience was one of the most valuable components of the MHCI program. I strongly believe I am a better designer today than I was a year ago; yet in this highly competitive marketplace if I cannot claim competence in industry-standard tools I am at a significant disadvantage. Certainly, students can make the extra effort to learn both software packages, but I believe the HCII should use the industry-standard in the classroom. I recommend the HCII consider replacing instruction in Macromedia Director with Macromedia Flash.
Sincerely,