I’ve chosen not to post my entire FITC presentation online at this time, but here is the set of resources linked to at the end of the preso. These links should get you on your way to learning about design for RIAs, then actually doing it using the Creative Suites apps, including Flash, to create assets for import into Flex Builder.

Rob’s Flex Interface Guidelines

NJ’s Skinning Tutorial

Flex Component Kit for Flash CS3

CS3 Components for Flex

Thermo Video, with Steven and Mark

Here’s a great article by Richard F. Cecil in which he defines a visual language for RIA component states. If you need to document your RIA designs in the form of flow diagrams, you may find this article useful.

As an aside, it’s great to see Richard use concepts and terminology that map very closely to the structural model established for Thermo.

One of the guiding philosophies of my design team at Adobe, and one that is constantly revisited, is that the real thing is better than words. That is, in design communication, words are of the least value, whereas a working prototype is of the most. And static wireframes, and designed mock-ups, fill in the middle values.

Over the last two years this philosophy has driven me to become a better graphic and visual designer, to learn actionscript, and to , in general, write a lot less and design a lot more.

I’ve found this approach to design useful when working on small projects, where time is short, the design is of limited complexity, and I’m working with only one or two developers. For larger projects, much more written design communication is necessary. The nature of words are that they are easy to create, and to change. Visual designs, on the other hand, are not nearly as flexible or quickly created. Fundamentally, the larger the project, the more necessary a strong but flexible conceptual foundation. Words are simply the best way to quickly describe the design in total, and the easiest to change in response to feedback from customers and stakeholders.