Flash Catalyst, now in Beta at Adobe Labs, is described as:

A new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating expressive interfaces and interactive content without writing code. Create interactive portfolios, product guides, microsites, site navigation, interfaces for RIAs and more.

You can download Flash Catalyst beta 2 at the Lab’s microsite. The beta 2 release adds support for video, sound effects, motion easing, AIR and more.

Adobe Flash is a fantastic product for video and interactive design, but coding in Action Script can be daunting to the novice user. Catalyst aims to give non-coders the chance to work on some interactive design and prototyping.

This product will be used to create projects for the student design competition at the Reynolds Journalism Institute.

One of the things we’re trying to help them figure out is how to more cost-effectively make more immersive, more interactive content that people will want to pay for or sponsor.

It will be interesting to see what the final projects when they’re presented at Adobe in May.