INTERVIEW 3 | Vol.
III No. 3, 2005
Thoughts on Interactive Design
Robert Reinhardt is the co-author of the Flash MX 2004 Bible and several other books, Director of Multimedia Applications for Schematic (www.schematic.com) in Los Angeles, a frequent lecturer at Flash conferences (such as FlashForward and Flash in the Can), and founder of an L.A. multimedia firm called [the MAKERS]. We caught up with Robert and got his thoughts on interactive design.
Q: Interactive design has been a buzz concept on the Web for a while now. To what extent has interactive design now penetrated our day-to-day lives?
Robert: Interactive design encompasses so much more than the Web or multimedia work I do day-to-day. When I think of good interactive design, I often think of my TiVo and its (very Flash-like) interface. TiVo is a great example of interactive design that penetrates my day-to-day life, and you don't even have to know what interactive design is to feel that. Just pick up the remote for any other device with an EPG (electronic program guide) and see how kludgey it feels.
What's even more interesting to me is that Web design and broadcast design continue to meld. At Schematic, our creative director Dale Herigstad has won countless awards for his work with iTV design, and more and more, our Flash teams at Schematic are creating and building TV-based UIs (user interfaces) for platforms such as Windows Media Center.
Q: Schematic has done a lot of work with "interactive marketing." Is this a niche thing for a design firm or in fact the future of marketing?
Robert: If by interactive marketing you mean banner ad campaigns for big budget movies, I don't think you can necessarily still call it a niche thing. Since Flash Player 4 (Flash Player is now at version 7, just about to be released in 8), Web ads have been published in the Flash format, and what we're seeing over the past couple of years is that advertisers are realizing just how much Flash can do—it's not just about watching a video or a trailer anymore.
The recent Wedding Crashers Flash marketing campaign (not created by Schematic, by the way) is one of the best examples I've seen of a movie studio embracing the capabilities of the Flash platform—and not just for technology's sake but really extending the entertainment experience in a relevant and memorable way. It makes the Web that much more engaging for everyone. I think the key there is empowerment. If you build technologies that empower your users, then they'll actually use it!
Q: What are the unique opportunities in (and unique obstacles to) interactive marketing with Flash?
Robert: The opportunities have existed for the last six years to gather so much information from the user, and I'm surprised at how little I see advertisers embracing the "two-way" communication a Flash interactive campaign can bring to the table. I think one of the primary obstacles is getting advertisers to see that giving the user more control of the online experience is beneficial to the bottom line. You have to show advertisers that their ads can be more than passive video trailers or animations of their products.
I think Schematic's trailblazing work in the iTV arena is proof that advertisers are slowly but surely coming to grips with the changes in technology. A recent proof-of-concept we built for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on Windows Media Center demonstrated how the TV and Web experience can converge. As you watch the show and products of advertisers are highlighted, you can add the item to a bin of favorites. You can then find out more about the product after the showing, or pause the show and go surf to the product's Web site.
Q: Tell us a little about the initial brainstorming process for your work.
Robert: At Schematic, our brainstorming process can vary greatly from one project to another—some clients come to us with very specific ideas and we'll follow through with the execution. Other clients come to us specifically for visionary work in UI (user interface) design; the brainstorming process for that type of work can be very elaborate and span several months, with various members of the creative and tech departments meeting to discuss ideas.
At Schematic, I've pioneered efforts to make sure that senior members of the technology department are present at the very early stages of any projects involving the Flash platform. I know other interactive design firms tend to leave tech out of the discussion until the execution (or production) phase, and only then discover that something can't be done with the current limitations of the platform, or perhaps worse, didn't realize the platform could have offered so much more to the final vision of the piece. I like using my Tablet PC to take notes that I can share with other team members, and, if the client permits, to record the conversations I have with clients and the team to review later. I try not to think of immediate solutions to problems while I'm in initial meetings with clients or even during internal meetings—that can just sidetrack me from actually listening.
It might sound clichéd but really listening to clients and to other people on a team is the most important part of brainstorming and early stages of project planning. The more projects I do, I think the more I can relax and trust that the solutions are going to be there as long as I fully absorb the requirements and unique opportunities of each project that comes along.
Q: When designing multimedia applications, how important is it to look at what has already been done? Do you think it's best to build off the conventions defined in the past, or is it better to design without that influence?
Robert: It's always inspiring to look at other people's work, whether it's more "traditional" art in a museum or gallery or watching film festivals for Flash design. We're all influenced by what we've seen and experienced, so I think anyone who thinks design can happen without building off the conventions of the past isn't fooling anyone else. With that said, I also think it's a mistake to limit the concept of what is relevant to designing multimedia applications. Some of the best work is done by people who are bringing experience and vision from other fields like architecture, industrial design, music or even marine biology.
Q: Have you had any experiences where a client wanted something that was clearly not a good idea? Or do you find that clients largely defer to your expertise?
Robert: Well, there are always clients who want a lot more than they're willing to pay for, and when you're in business, that's clearly not a good idea from the designer's perspective. I find that some of my clients outside of Schematic tend to convince themselves that they're the first to have a specific idea for a Web site or Web-based application, and then I'll show them something that's been around for a while and they'll still think their idea is different.
Whether it's my work at Schematic or my work at [theMAKERS], most of my clients don't question my expertise about Flash technology—that's by and large why they're coming to me in the first place. Fortunately, with my work at [theMAKERS], I'm in a position where I can avoid clients who have ideas that I don't think will be well-served by my expertise.
Q: Xbox Live (whose Xarcade UI Schematic designed) is definitely at the forefront of combining television, gaming, and internet access. Where do you picture media confluence going? How long until we only have one machine: a combo DVD player, MP3 player, CD player, computer, television, modem, Web browser, game console? What are the next innovations we should look for?
Robert: If I had a crystal ball, I'd tell you, but I've learned over the years that you can't count on the industry to make accurate predictions. But, if I had to focus on one pivotal issue for the evolution of media confluence, I think it would be UI design. Before we can see integrated all-in-one devices really succeed, we need better design.
More and more products are featuring LCD screens (or some kind of display technology) that enables a manufacturer to put more interface control into the screen instead of hard-wired analog controls on the device like tuning knobs, and so on. Unless the screen design is really thoughtful, most people will get frustrated pretty quickly and choose another tool or device if they can find one. I think we'll continue to see separate devices for most technologies simply because everyone likes different features.
It's rare that someone with disposable income will get an all-in-one device because there's almost always something lacking in one of the components. I think Microsoft is leading the way with both Xbox and the Media Center editions of Windows XP—the computer as we know it is probably the most user-configurable device we have: you can expand it with a variety of third-party after-market goods.
Customization is appealing to everyone, and that trend will continue to influence the marketing of everything from cars to furniture to music. As people's expectations of a product's ability to meet their needs and tastes increases, so too will the need for systems that make it easy to manage content and track preferences. Some people just like new gadgets, but unless that gadget actually improves their experience or adds value to an existing system, it will quickly turn into a dust-gathering waste of space.
Q: What major strides have you seen in Web interactivity in the past few years?
Robert: Without trying to get too geeky, it's been very nice to see more Web sites becoming more like Web applications, whether they use Flash or not. The Flash platform has been capable of displaying large amounts of live data for some time. Flash is not only a media consumer (via Flash Video, Flash animations) but also a data consumer. There's still loads of untapped potential for creating fluid, functional sites that will improve user experiences for everything from banking to shopping to learning and research. Flash can enable you to do so much without having to refresh the Web browser with another HTML-based page.
Q: Do you find that bandwidth and browser compatibility are still major obstacles for interactive Web sites?
Robert: It really depends on what the UI layer is. If it's Flash, I find it's much simpler to design and deploy to comply with all browsers on the market today. The only obstacle with Flash is determining which Flash Player version you'll target. Newer versions of the Flash Player don't have the same penetration as older players. So, again, it comes down to a target audience question. What kind of environment is your target audience in?
Schematic is getting more and more involved with UI design for mobile devices, especially mobile phones using Flash Lite. Bandwidth on many US-based phone networks is incredibly slow, usually slower than a 56K modem connection. And there's also the whole OCC model (Occasionally Connected Computing), where you might have a broadband connection most of the time but need to be able to use a Flash application when you're no longer connected to the Internet. As our computing technology become more portable, we'll need to plan and develop solutions that can work with or without an Internet connection.
Q: What do you see in the future of Web interactivity?
Robert: I think we'll see more and more RIAs, or Rich Internet Applications, featured on Web sites, and we'll see more companies embracing the two-way user experience with UI design. I think we're only starting to see the potential of Webcams and live conferencing over the Web. I built a proof-of-concept site, www.iknowbetter.com, to be a video blogging forum where people could rant about whatever they wanted. So much of what we experience on the Web is text-based, and right now, search engines can really only index text. Technology still has a long way to go in terms of analyzing other content, such as video and audio.
On a separate track, I personally would like to see the power of my household PC tapped more by other devices I carry around. I don't like to carry a gazillion devices with me when I travel, but I also don't want an all-in-one phone that's the size of a small brick. As more and more devices become wireless and have connections to the Internet, I hope we'll see more applications that enable you to store everything from digital photos to home videos to your favorite TV shows to your bank records on a primary computer in your residence.
Whenever you want to access your "data," there will be a way to get it from your laptop, your phone or your car. I spend a lot of my "free" time trying to come up with my own solutions that let me, for instance, listen to MP3's on a streaming connection to my computer at home, or make a phone call on my Pocket PC using my Vonage VoIP phone line at home. I can't always get my inventions to work as well as I want them, but I have confidence that it'll be easier in the future to do these things without knowing how to program a Web server.
And it's already happening—a couple of years ago, I had to hack my Series 1 TiVo to be able to schedule TV show recordings over the Web. When TiVo saw that happening on a large scale with TiVo users, they made sure they integrated that functionality into the newer Series 2 TiVo's.
