Suppress that Reflex: Think about user experience when evaluating Flex
Someone in our chat pointed me to this great article by Yakov Fain, of Farata Systems. This is a must read for anyone evaluating Flex, either as a developer or as a product manager. Here is the article in summary:
1. Flex 2 is not a RAD tool
2. The pool of Flex developers is still limited - retrain your developers
3. Check the credentials of the vendors you hire
4. Be careful with frameworks - use components
5. Architecture - Avoid monolithic applications
I want to add another point: Think about user experience.
I get the feeling from talking with many developers, clients, and prospective clients that they think adding a little bit of Flex will compensate for the poor look and performance of their existing site. I recently had a potential client ask me to help re-write a web application that was not performing well. They felt that certain features were being underutilized because the existing HTML-based site made it hard for the user to figure out where to click, what to do next, what was available to do at the time.
They thought Flex would be able to solve this. But when I saw the initial design for the Flex rewrite it turned out to be very similar to the old HTML app. Sure, Flex offers new affordances and UI elements like transitions and effects to guide the user’s action through a complex form, but can this overcome a confusing information architecture? Why jump right in and recreate everything from scratch? Take incremental steps instead. Figure out what can be changed on your site/app to make it easier to use, easier for the user to figure out what actions are available to them. If you’re starting from scratch, Flex might be the way to go. But, take some time first to evaluate the pros and cons in terms of development and user experience.