Designing Interactive Products

Tools of the trade

I thought I'd talk about the hardware and software I use everyday and why I use them. Feel free to comment with your setup and tell me why you like it.

• Of course, I use Movable Type to publish my site.
• I have a Mac Mini in my home office and a PowerBook from work that I carry everywhere. I love being able to work on a Mac and don't really ever want to use Windows again.
• To do any sort of coding (HTML, CSS, Javascript, whatever) I use TextMate. I previously used Dreamweaver, even for hand-coding, but I switched because Dreamweaver just felt like overkill and I felt stupid telling people that I used a software program called "Dreamweaver."
• I use Fireworks to do all wireframes, comps and graphics. I've used Fireworks for a long time and it just feels natural to me. Whenever I've tried to switch to Photoshop or Illustrator it's just felt wrong.
• I use Transmit as my ftpclient, but I don't have as much need for it nowadays because most of what I do gets checked into subversion rather than uploaded to a webserver.

There are a few more things that I'll get into in more detail at a later date.

Fireworks vs. Photoshop

Digital Web recently hosted an interesting discussion about which application makes the most sense for web designers. I've been a Fireworks fan for years -- I think I may have even used version 1.0 -- and I still think it's a lot easier to use than Photoshop. I find PS to be unintuitive and overly complicated while Fireworks just seems to conform to my mental model of how graphics software should work.

If you're new to web design, Fireworks will almost certainly be easier to learn but I agree with Anton Peck when he says:

If someone is getting into web design specifically, I'd point them toward Fireworks and say "skip Photoshop". But--and this is a crucial point--if they're considering a choice that could involve graphics from many facets of technology, from many sources, I'd definitely tell them to go with Photoshop, as it's an established standard that will provide a stronger cross-industry experience in their career.

I think that sums it up perfectly.