Allow me to introduce myself

[Ben Edwards]

I'm Ben Edwards, from Minneapolis. I am a founding partner of Refactr LLC where I act as interface/interaction/information designer and client side developer on rapid software development projects using Groovy and Grails.

I also blog at AltText.com and have done so for over 10 years now.

-Ben
 
/*-------------------------------------
Ben Edwards  
Refactr LLC // refactr.com
651-398-3494
------------------------------------- */

[Mike Pence]

Wow, Ben. I honestly didn't know that people were using Groovy in
production apps much. Tell us about it.

Mike Pence

[Robby Russell]

On Jan 11, 2007, at 9:41 PM, Ben Edwards wrote:

> I'm Ben Edwards, from Minneapolis. I am a founding partner of
> Refactr LLC where I act as interface/interaction/information
> designer and client side developer on rapid software development
> projects using Groovy and Grails.
>
> I also blog at AltText.com and have done so for over 10 years now.

Ben,

Thanks for stopping by and introducing yourself.

As a i/i/i designer, I'd be interested in knowing what types of
issues that you face in your projects that you feel is somewhat at
the mercy of quality dialogue.

Cheers,

-Robby

--
Robby Russell
http://www.robbyonrails.com/
http://www.planetargon.com/

[Ben Edwards]

On 1/12/07, Mike Pence <mike....@gmail.com> wrote:

Wow, Ben. I honestly didn't know that people were using Groovy in
production apps much. Tell us about it.

Mike Pence

While there is not much yet that can point to to show everyone, we have found that Groovy (and Grails) works well to develop web applications (it is not just for prototyping). In the coming months we are hoping to introduce a couple of these applications and, perhaps, have them as a part of the Grails site showcase.

We are eagerly awaiting a couple more releases to Grails before we get to far into it. We love Groovy for its similarity to Java, of course and see a lot of promise in Grails, we just need to give it time.

-Ben
 

[Ben Edwards]

On 1/21/07, Robby Russell <ro...@planetargon.com> wrote:

Ben,

Thanks for stopping by and introducing yourself.

As a i/i/i designer, I'd be interested in knowing what types of
issues that you face in your projects that you feel is somewhat at
the mercy of quality dialogue.

Cheers,

-Robby

The biggest difference I see from "traditional interface design" and what I face when working in an agile, dialog-driven process is that there are far fewer times when I get to sit down and push pixels around the screen for 6-8 hours and many more instances where I am scribbling things on scraps of paper with the client and developers.

Much of what we capture in the paper prototype phase is what actions can be performed on each screen, the user flow through the application, and the sequence of those screens. Then I do get to go into Photoshop (or sometimes just CSS) and design those elements.

Often I will think of something while immersed in the more visual aspects of the design that that I will bring back into the discussion the next time we are with the client.

There is a great degree of variance between clients. Some may take a real backseat in the layout and design potions of the discussions and some want to specify every color and icon placement. I prefer clients who are squarly in the middle of those two extremes. It is very rewarding when a client takes a genuine interest and brings his/her own industry experience to bear on an interface and then gets out of the way and leaves me to practice my craft.

Regards,

-Ben