CategoryPrototyping

July 3, 2012 — As interface designers, we’re often required to demonstrate the look and feel (and interactions) of the interfaces we design. We often begin with a series of flat images, and while these may be pixel perfect and show some amazing detail, they lack the context of the user experience. Read more…

June 25, 2012 — Whilst designing for screens—including Web, mobile and RIAs—you often need to create a prototype to see whether the application works properly before moving onto the development stage. Prototypes are also essential in Web projects. Read more…

December 13, 2011 — I hear a lot of people talking about the importance of sketching when designing or problem solving, yet it seems very few people actually sketch. As a UX professional, I sketch every day. I often take over entire walls in our office and cover them with sketches, mapping out everything from context scenarios to wire frames and presentations. Read more…

October 25, 2011 — Editor’s note: This article is the second piece in our new series introducing new, useful and freely available tools and techniques presented and released by active members of the Web design community (the first article covered PrefixFree, a new tool be Lea Verou). ZURB are well-known for their wireframing and prototyping tools and in this post they present their recent tool, Foundation, a framework to help you build prototypes and production code that’s truly responsive. “Foundation”)](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/25/rapid-prototyping-for-any-device-with-foundation/) You’ve probably already heard about responsive design, which is website design that responds to the device constraints of the person viewing it. It’s a hot topic right now, and with good reason: alternative devices outsell desktop PCs 4 to 1 already, and within three years more Internet traffic in the US will go through mobile devices than through laptops or desktops. All of this is forcing a convergence on what Jeremy Keith calls the “one Web”: a single Web that doesn’t care what device you’re on, how you’re viewing content or how you’re interacting with it. Read more…

September 26, 2011 — Michelangelo once said, “The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself.” Translate this to the world of Web design and you might say, “No matter how great a designer you are, you’re only as good as your content.” While the reality of client work sometimes makes it challenging to gather and produce content prior to starting the design, this is now widely accepted as being necessary. Read more…

June 16, 2010 — The old adage, “a picture speaks a thousand words” captures what user interface prototyping is all about: using visuals to describe thousands of words’ worth of design and development specifications that detail how a system should behave and look. In an iterative approach to user interface design, rapid prototyping is the process of quickly mocking up the future state of a system, be it a website or application, and validating it with a broader team of users, stakeholders, developers and designers. Doing this rapidly and iteratively generates feedback early and often in the process, improving the final design and reducing the need for changes during development. Read more…

May 17, 2010 — Because you (and your client) want the changes to be as cost-efficient as possible, you are better off adopting change-friendly prototyping methods and tools. This is especially true in the early stages of the project, when your ideas for potential solutions are rather vague. In this early phase, most often you don’t even know the exact problem for which you are hunting for a solution. You are still analyzing more than designing. Read more…

March 29, 2010 — Sketching and wireframing are a specialized style of drawing, used for fleshing out preliminary complex ideas, group brain-storming, a lo-fi method for evaluating interaction concepts, and as a way of roughly perfecting a design technique. Read more…

September 1, 2009 — Wireframing is one of the most valuable parts of any web design project. It can save a designer tons of time by hashing out the details of a site’s architecture, functionality, and content prior to actually starting a visual design. But if done inefficiently, it can end up costing more time and can even create bigger headaches for both the client and the designer. Read more…