The resources at the Macromedia site are great, but they are a bit scattered. The help feature is an excellent resource and I loved the tutorials that came with Flash MX application. That gave me a full sense of what was possible with the application.

Overall, I think Macromedia is doing an excellent job in providing materials for their users, and the Macromedia community is very helpful when it comes to issues. For first time users though, they need some hand holding and prompting, so I think anything you do will be good as long as you keep that in mind.

I definitely think that the introductory tutorials that were included with Flash 2, 3 and maybe even 4 (?) were useful, straightforward and informative. But then again, Flash is far more complex now.

I think it’d be easier for beginners if the authoring tool were more structured in general (might benefit all of us) - so that the timeline was organized more like Director as one example - with specific layers for frame labels, timeline ActionScript etc. This could be extended to other areas - all in all making for fewer options to achieve the same result (and thereby less rope to hang with…etc).

Then why not have a panel with easy to understand buttons that achieve certain tasks: select some articles on the stage then press the “Make this an animated MovieClip” button - with a pop-up to tick options like “Animate once” or “Control this MovieClip with Behaviors”… etc

Workspace: I personally find that the areas that one interacts with the objects on stage are too distributed - with transforms, properties, Actionscript, names, references, dimensions etc all spread around different panels. Again, a Director-like translucent panel that attaches directly to the object with all of these attributes would make it easier to see what each object is/does/has.

May have been said before, but way not throw in some sort of ‘bonzi-buddy’ (I’m sure you’ve heared of that). Let him/her/it guide users trough tutorials, where the user still has control over the mouse, and should be following up instructions this little creature says.
That way people don’t only read about how they should do it, but are doing it themselves at the same time.
… Only skip the annoying ‘acting funny’ part, make it more straight-forward (in a friendly way of course). heck, you could even open up some sort of competition as who can create the best character suitable for this job.

In any way, I don’t think you should make the techniques more accesable, focus on the training (then again you can wonder; what do you actually think MM’s job is, making the programmes, or explaining the programmes, + if you leave training more to third parties more people can benefit from Flash)

Maybe using some kind of pointer thing (like in dreamweaver) would be useful. So users could specify an action and then drag the pointer to indicate which MC they want the action to effect.

As mentioned by Jonathan I think the development of the interactivity of flash it self could be extremely useful. Rather than putting tutorials outside of flash they should be available on-the-fly and within flash.

e.g. you want to add and action to button, So you click help, select ‘add a button actions’, then flash demonstrates inside your movie what to do, promoting you for necessary info. But as above this is not a wizard, it is more like a teacher demonstrating something to a student.

I remember from flash 5 (that’s how I learned flash!) the beginner tutorials with a motion guide and a bee… You probarly remember

That are some good start tutorials for the REAL beginners!

Michael van Leest
http://www.wantonline.com

I have seen alot of confusion concerning
the timeline itself and the proper usage.
(unless one was a videotographer in a previous life)

How about more timeline tools in the IDE….
automating the ‘insert frame’ and
‘insert blank keyframe’ and ‘add layer’
and ‘add folder’

such as (off the top of my head)

- default timeline layout
- custom timeline layout
- standard animation timeline layout
- standard form timeline layout
- standard application timeline layout

- maybe even an invert layers function
- alphabetize layers?
- or move layer to next scene
- or whatever

? might make things alittle easier

_codedone
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