To Animate or Not to Animate?

1. What made you want to become a designer?

I think I was always interested creating/building things as a kid and my high school was lucky enough to have a Commercial Art class, which gave me a taste of creating designs for specific assignments. I wound up going to college to earn a degree in Applied Art & Design for print media. After working in the print industry for a few years, I discovered the emerging field of multimedia and I knew that I eventually wanted to transition my business from print to on-screen media.

2. How long have you been coding?

If you count experimentation, I’d say roughly 23 years. I’d trace my first coding experience back to a version of Hypercard I discovered by accident on an old black-and-white Mac I had borrowed from a friend. I’m guessing it was around 1990/1991 when I learned that Hypercard allowed you to build interactive projects with transitions and sounds. I became hooked.

3. How did you discover LiveCode?

It was a long road! Like so many other people, I ran into Hypercard’s limitations early on and wanted to find something more capable. I was using Director about the same time, but I preferred the language of Hypercard because it was more approachable for me. Eventually, I was referred to SuperCard and I spent a few years with that software, until I got to the point that I needed to create media for Windows machines (SuperCard is Mac only). I was then referred to Metacard, the forerunner of LiveCode. Metacard’s UI was quite horrible from a visual design standpoint, but it was fast and could deliver on multiple platforms. Eventually, Metacard became Revolution and Revolution was eventually renamed LiveCode.

4. What did you like about LiveCode?

Graphics and audio capabilities were always important, but for me, it really was the language. Because I started out with Hypertalk, the sentence-like structure of LiveCode was easy to understand (much more so than dot syntax or other arcane languages that I had difficulty following). There are always certain features that are nice to have, but LiveCode’s language is really what allows me to get things done.

5. What made you start your own media business?

My business actually started out as an experiment. After leaving my first job out of college, I thought I would try my hand at running my own studio for a while – just to see if I could do it. I thought, if it doesn’t work out, I can always go out and look for a new job. 25 years later, the experiment is still going strong. I have Google beat in the longest running beta test ever.

6. Was there anything that scared you when you launched the business?

The biggest fear I had when starting my studio was making sure I took care of all the business aspects: licenses, taxes, bookkeeping, etc. As years went by, I realized that this stuff wasn’t that important for my situation of being a sole proprietor and what really mattered was doing a good job and meeting deadlines.

7. What were some hurdles your business had to overcome?

The biggest hurdles I faced when launching my business were probably getting equipment and clients. I started out my business with 1 or 2 small clients, some relationships with a few vendors in the area, and not much else. I was lucky enough to borrow a computer from a friend and, eventually, I was able to get into some cheap office space at a cooperative service bureau. Vendors that I knew referred me to some of their customers from whom I was able to get a small job here or there.

8. What did starting a business teach you about yourself and about the business world?

I’ve learned a number of things about myself: I prefer the creative side of running a business over the business side. I’d rather jump in and try to solve a problem instead of sitting in planning meetings discussing how to approach the problem. And after dealing with dozens of businesses over the years, I’ve found that the business world has its fair share of mediocre management.

9. What advice would you give to someone about to start their own business?

One piece of advice I would offer for anyone wanting to start a business is don’t be in a hurry. Work with other people, get some experience under your belt, and establish relationships with people in your industry. In my experience, the old adage, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” rings true. Looking back, I realize I started very early with my business and I could have benefited from working with a few different companies before going off on my own.

10. What do you love about animation?

When done well, animation can add interest and a bit of delight to the process of accessing information as well as to the information itself. Animation can also communicate and provide a sense of position and place when navigating an app.

11. Why is it important to incorporate animation in applications?

I’m not sure animation is important for apps, but it’s becoming a much more common aspect of app interaction and behavior. I’ve seen one prediction that claims 2015 is going to be the year of animation.

12.What do you think makes a great user experience?

In addition to an appealing visual design, a great user experience for me is one that enables a user to accomplish a task in a delightful way. This could be through the use of animation, a gamified activity, a well-designed tutorial—some aspect that adds a bit more to the process of getting from A to B.

13. Why is that important?

Good user experience enhances learning and is memorable. From a business standpoint, you want users to be successful or productive with your application, but a good user experience can also persuade users to recommend your app to colleagues, friends, and communities.

14. Is there anything you would tell your yester-year self before he started his business?

“There’s this thing that’s going to happen called ‘the Internet’. It’s going to be big.”

What do you think about design, animation, and user interface experience? Are they important for your business? Do you have a story like Scott’s? Share your comments below!