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Understanding the Macromedia Flex Experience Model


Mike Sundermeyer

Mike Sundermeyer

Macromedia

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. What Is "Experience"?
  3. Design Goals of a HALO Application
  4. Exploring the HALO Experience Model
  5. Where to Go from Here
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Created:
15 March 2004
User Level:
All

Macromedia Flex introduces a new way to create applications. Its language, MXML, is deceptively similar to HTML but it provides a richer, more powerful model than HTML, called the HALO experience model. With power comes the responsibility to use it wisely. This article is intended for user interface designers. I discuss some of the design goals in the HALO experience model and explain how to use them to your advantage.

HALO is a cross-platform experience model for Rich Internet Applications. Macromedia developed HALO initially for use in its own consumer-facing applications but later found that it provides a consistent set of visual cues, interaction patterns, and application navigation conventions for developers of Rich Internet Applications. Some of these are embedded in the components, containers, and layouts that ship with Flex 1.0 but many more will come in future versions of Flex, as well as future solution packs. Think of us as your "design team in a box." Of course, no amount of technology reliably yields a great experience, but HALO should give you some good tools with which to get started.

You can see some of the HALO principles at work on the Flex Developer Center application examples page.

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About the author

Mike Sundermeyer is SVP of Product Design at Macromedia. Growing up surfing in Santa Cruz has given him a love of the experience. Growing up with traffic lights that deliver two-minute reds at 3 AM has given him an indignation for bad design. At Macromedia he used applied indignation as the lead UI designer for the first two versions of Dreamweaver and contributed to the conception and design of Contribute, Breeze, Flex, and other products. Prior to Macromedia Mike led various design and development projects at Gain Technology, a multimedia startup, and Sun Microsystems.