Expressionism

I've just started learning about WPF for designers, Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer. A month or so ago, I attended a Microsoft presentation on Expression Web Designer which was interesting enough as far as a web design package goes (guess the thing that interested me most was the CSS maintenance tools - how that could aid workflow, more than building pages as such) but it's Expression Interactive Designer (EID) that has piqued my interest.

Having created buttons, splash screens, icons etc for windows applications over the years, I was indeed interested in how EID could improve the workflow between visual designers and developers. Currently, I create buttons etc in Photoshop and then export them as gifs or jpegs, handing them over to the developer to implement. On some occasions I've seen that these images haven't always been implemented as I would have desired - I could have tweaked them here or there to accommodate the situation in which they are used had I been in control of applying them. Microsoft's new suite of tools offers designers the opportunity of actually working on the interface independently of the developer. One way might be that the developer will create a 'skeleton' application that simply holds all the controls and elements required in the app which can then be handed over to the designer for styling. You could draw a similarity to building pages with CSS - the page structure and behaviour is set whilst the CSS designer can control the style without affecting the content. In the same way, it is hoped that EID will allow definite roles to be established between the development of the function and the look and feel. The developer can work on the aspects of the project that he or she is best skilled to resolve, and the designer, the style. Currently these roles can blur into each other which threatens to dilute the quality of the end solution.

This all sounds impressive and definitely something I would like to investigate, however I do wonder how this will affect the usability of applications. Rightly or wrongly I think it would be fair to say that it has been the technology developer that has set a president for the look and feel of applications as we experience them today. Certain conventions have taken hold; menus, folders, files are all aspects of day to day computing we have become familiar with. If suddenly the designer's influence is overwhelming in application interfaces, how many different approaches to common commands and functions are we going to have to experience from app to app? Even Microsoft themselves appear to be moving away from the folder/file concept - how will all this affect the average user? I guess we will have to watch this space. Just as with the use of Flash on websites, designers are going to have to take responsibility for ensuring an application's interface is 'usable' and not an 'expression' of their own design egos!