December 23, 2009
Posted in Information Architecture, Prototyping, Wireframing — no comments.
Yesterday, Axure released the alpha version of Axure RP 5.6 for Mac, and this is great news. As one of my favorites characters would say “Hell, it’s about time!”. And as a gift, Axure released a downloadable version for test, free until February 28, 2010. Hey, this is a good news and awesome Christmas present.
I’ve been using Axure for more than 2 years and I’ve to say, it helped me to create products beyond clients expectations. It’s a powerful tool to create wireframes, real prototypes and specification documents – with notes and screenshots. If you’re looking for a good and easy-to-use tool, this is what you need.
Axure RP is the leading tool for rapidly creating wireframes, prototypes and specifications for applications and web sites. — Axure web site.
With its gorgeous looking icon and beautiful splash screen, Axure is easy as the Windows version. By default you have the following windows:
- Sitemap with all pages of your project
- Widgets the elements to drag-and-drop
- Masters most used elements (you can use the include concept from PHP)
- Annotations where you can take notes like Description, Status, Benefit, or create your own custom titles
- Interactions give live to elements
- Dynamic Panel Manager the “AJAX” panels for interactions without reload the page
- Page Notes for each page
- Page Interactions onload events
In the toolbar, the most used features grouped:
- Selection Mode
- Partial selection
- Full selection
- Connectors
- Generate
- Prototype
- Specifications
- Generators
- Object
- Group
- Ungroup
- Front
- Back
- Align modes
- Distribute modes
- Arrange panels
- Show/Hide left
- Show/Hide right
- Show/Hide all
The best part is the compatibility with Axure files made on Windows version. You can normally open files, edit them, save and open again on Windows. It works like a charm!
But remember, this is the alpha version. The Axure team have lot of work to do until the final release. Enjoy this incredible software on your Mac now!
Thanks Axure, for this lovely Christmas gift!
December 21, 2009
Posted in Information Architecture, Prototyping — no comments.
Protokit is toolkit created by Michael Angeles, aka jibbajabba, from Konigi to rapidly create HTML protoypes using jQuery, Blueprint, and iXEdit. If you are looking to create HTML prototypes and need a easy-to-use, friendly and fast framework, you probably will love Protokit.
HTML prototypes are very useful if coded in the right way. It is also very fast to do and easy to integrate any kind of interaction you need to show your client. Besides that, they’re easy to maintain and make change requests, anyone with some HTML and CSS knowledge can handle it.
If you’re new to prototyping, I really recommend the “Prototyping – A Practitioner’s Guide” book by Todd Zaki Warfel. And don’t miss my review of it.
What Protokit does for you
It’s very common clients request navigable prototypes of entire application or the most part of it. If you create wireframes with OmniGraffle or Photoshop for example, it’s not possible to represent real-time animations or interactions like scrollers, sliders, tooltips, etc. Protokit rapidly help you create these actions saving time and effort.
The good thing creating HTML prototypes is the chance to reuse the code. You and your team can work together and save even more effort reusing the prototype code. And not only HTML, the most reusable code is Javascript (if using the same framework it’s even better).
Why should I use Protokit
Because it’s beautiful and you’ll love it. Your clients will love it. The final result and the product delivered will be much more appreciated and satisfactory. Protokit outputs a beautiful layout with black, white and gray colors, with a lovely menu bar and notes bar at the right hand side and the specification document at the bottom.
Yes, it’s possible and easy to add notes and specs to your prototype. Notes are placed into a file with the extension .notes and Specs are placed into a file with extension .specs. That’s it, you’re done with notes and specs. And the best part of it, both of them are made in only HTML code. Simple and fast!
Go ahead and try it.
December 02, 2009
Posted in Book Review, Prototyping — no comments.
For the first time I could grab my hands on something really useful, a guide that helps you from scratch to a good level of knowledge and perspective. This book is for everyone, designers, developers, managers, and I even think clients should read it too. It is easy and fast to read. With its real case studies, you can feel how prototyping can really help you to reduce time, save money and do the right thing.
“Prototyping – A Practitioner’s Guide” book written by Todd Zaki Warfel is intelligently organized into three main sections.
- Section One theory and best practices of prototyping.
- Section Two method of prototyping.
- Section Three testing your prototyping.
Theory and best practices of prototyping
This is the most important section of this book in my opinion. If you don’t have any knowledge making prototypes or if this is your main responsibility at work, both will work for you.
Todd starts his book with the most important topic everyone should now, Chapter One – The Value of Prototyping. An amazing chapter that introduces how important prototyping is and what it can do for you, for your team, and for your client. And there is more, he tells you how to sell prototyping internally for your boss or client, perfect approach!
Next, two topics you can never forget, Prototyping Process and Guiding Principles. I can ensure you, as Todd does, if you apply these two topics into your prototyping life, things will be much easier, healthier, and less painful.
In Todd’s process you will notice that he emphasizes sketching all the time, and I have to agree with him. After I read the book, I’ll start my projects always with a simple sketch. Why? Because it saves a lot of time, effort while trying to explain features, reduce misinterpretation, and my favorite, it is free, everyone can use it, and it can be done everywhere you like.
After you managed the Prototyping Process it is time for some principles. These principles helps you to understand your audience, plan and create prototypes – that can be a paper prototype, a HTML prototype, or even a hi-fi Axure prototype. These principles are a good way for effective prototyping and avoid mistakes in the prototyping process.
Method of Prototyping
Now that Todd gives you the basis to understand what a prototype is and why you should do them, it is time to get your hands dirty and play with some sketches.
In this book, you will find six chapters describing different methods of prototyping. Each chapter shows strengths, weaknesses, how to prototype with each method, and additional resources like stencils for applications and useful links.
At the beginning of each chapter, there is a matrix which will help you evaluate the tool in question with several different methods and stages of prototyping. This is a really useful tool, it helps you to quickly choose what tool do you need for a given step of your work.
Todd covers the following tools:
- Paper prototyping
- PowerPoint and Keynote
- Visio
- Fireworks
- Axure RP Pro
- HTML
Testing your prototype
After you’ve learned what a prototype is, when to use it and to whom do it, how to sell to your boss and client, choose what tool suits you and your audience best, it is time to test them with real the people, the participants.
Todd describes a little about usability tests and how to take advantage of it after you are done with the prototyping phase. He also shows some common mistakes while performing usability tests with solutions to each one of them.
I’ve learned a lot from this last section of the book. Testing prototypes is not as easy as I thought it might be, you have to be carefully when choosing participants and creating a process to make the tests. Yes, usability test is not an event, it is a process.
Make use of tools like screen recording, audio and video recording. These are very useful tools for reviewing your notes and make sure to not miss any details while doing a usability test.
Additional resources
