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User Experience 2002—San Francisco—June
3, 2002—Macromedia, Inc. (Nasdaq: MACR) and
Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., usability guru and founder of
Nielsen Norman Group, today announced a strategic
relationship to focus on improving the usability of
rich Internet applications and content. Nielsen will
be developing best practice guidelines for creating
usable rich Internet applications with Macromedia
Flash MX. Macromedia Flash MX, which began shipping
in March, contains features that enable designers
and developers to be more productive while ensuring
their work is both usable and accessible. Macromedia
Flash MX is the fastest way to create rich Internet
content and applications that deliver a better return
on investment.
"There continues to be tremendous innovation
in the designer and developer community around creating
the best user experiences using Macromedia Flash,"
said Kevin Lynch, chief software architect, Macromedia.
"We're thrilled to be working with Jakob Nielsen
to turn these experiences into best practices as we
all learn about building rich Internet applications.
Our ultimate goal is to make these 100 percent good."
"Macromedia has obviously taken steps toward
better usability with Macromedia Flash MX," said
Nielsen. "The product enables users to create
content and applications more easily that follow traditional
usability and accessibility guidelines. In particular,
the addition of standardized interface components
will finally help put an end to design inconsistencies."
Macromedia Flash MX meets the needs of both designers
and developers to deliver rich Internet content and
applications that can be experienced consistently
across all leading platforms and devices. The product
simplifies the process of visual authoring for traditional
web developers who want to use a rich client technology
for their applications. The more than one million
designers already familiar with Macromedia Flash can
use their existing skills along with new server technologies
to address the emergence of rich Internet applications.
Macromedia Flash MX is an integral part of the MX
product family. For more information on Macromedia
Flash MX, go to www.macromedia.com/go/flashmx/.
Macromedia Flash MX contains new features like components,
which enable developers to use common application
interfaces, including scrollbars, rich text fields,
input buttons, radio buttons and check boxes, and
list and combo boxes within their applications. A
common user interface frees site visitors to focus
on the task they are trying to complete instead of
how they need to accomplish it. Named anchors in Macromedia
Flash content let end users move through the site
using their browser navigation buttons.
Macromedia Flash MX also simplifies the creation
of accessible user experiences by enabling the addition
of descriptive text to rich Internet applications
and content. This allows people with disabilities
to interact with Macromedia Flash applications and
content using accessibility aids such as screen readers.
Rich Internet applications free developers to move
beyond the document-based framework of the browser.
The result of delivering these more intuitive, responsive
applications will be increased productivity and better
experiences for end users. Macromedia and Jakob Nielsen
will be working together to help designers and developers
learn how to take advantage of the opportunities of
this new market segment by developing best practices
for rich Internet applications.
ABOUT NIELSEN NORMAN GROUP
Nielsen Norman Group (www.nngroup.com)
is a user-experience think tank that advises companies
on how to succeed through human-centered design of
products and services. Nielsen Norman Group principals
Jakob Nielsen, Don Norman, and Bruce "Tog"
Tognazzini are each world-renowned experts in usability
and human use of technology. Besides authoring books
and evangelizing about user experience, they and the
other user-experience specialists in Nielsen Norman
Group offer high-level strategic consultation on usability
of websites, consumer products, software designs,
and anything else that needs to be easy-to-use.
ABOUT MACROMEDIA
Macromedia (www.macromedia.com) empowers
millions of designers and developers to create effective
user experiences across the widest array of platforms
and devices. Through an open, integrated family of
client, tool, and server technologies, Macromedia
is driving a new generation of rich Internet applications
that will radically improve the Internet experience.
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