A little tangle about rapid prototyping

As an interactive designer and tool controller, I have always been interested in the topic of what tools to use for prototyping. Since her work, she has used many different types of prototype tools in succession, from the most basic pen and paper to http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/11647.html"> Axure RP / Omni graffle, constantly trying And comparison, has been thinking about what the prototype tool is best suited for interactive design.It was later discovered that this problem is not solution.From the purpose, simply to discuss the tool is not worth so think of a quick prototype to write the purpose and tools to choose First to define the prototype, the key point here is to distinguish between the three concepts of wireframe, prototype and mockup. Wireframe, literal words are wireframes. Sketch or schematic composed of lines belong to the wireframe. Of course, if If you have a simple shading or coloring, it usually falls to wireframe.

Mockup, models, industrial design with mockup will be more, such as 1: 1 car sludge model. However, in ui design, the concept of mockup and sometimes wireframe is not very clear. Such as balsamiq mockups this software, its implementation effect should actually belong to the level of wireframe. The figure below shows the implementation of balsamiq mockups.

Finally say prototype, prototype. Prototype more emphasis on functionality, and the above two is very easy to distinguish, the general can interact is the prototype. Therefore, the output of ps generally will not be a prototype, and dw pages called prototype, the following figure is a prototype of Apple.

Flicrk searched for a long time and found that the prototype is difficult to use image performance, so I found a youtube paper prototype video. I have been on the paper prototype is not cold, after reading even more so. Video Address Prototypes In general, there are also low-fidelity prototypes and high-fidelity prototypes. Like the paper prototype above, it is a low-fidelity prototype. However, tangled, this method is again problematic. Because fidelity has at least two dimensions. Visual fidelity and fidelity of interaction (perfectness of function realization). Another dimension is the fidelity of content, which is also a very important dimension in content products.

In the above chart, one important factor is whether the technology or code can be reused. It is not the main concern of this article to make a clean-up here. Considering code reuse in rapid prototyping will bring many limitations without any restrictions. As far as I can see, in general, projects outside the web or blend, the reuse of the prototype code is relatively rare. And the pursuit of code reuse prototype, must have been in a relatively high degree of fidelity stage, itself does not meet the rapid prototyping to pursue the number and the purpose of iteration, the following will be mentioned. The visual fidelity of a prototype can be significant when it comes to external customers. It helps clients understand design better and a visual fidelity prototype will be more persuasive when it comes to proposals. The downside is equally clear, and the same prototype requires more time, once the design changes are put in. And in the early stages of a project it is generally hard to make a prototype with a high visual fidelity, so throughout the design flow The application is also limited. Therefore, if it is not necessary to propose to external clients, but only for internal communication and to verify the interaction, the visual fidelity can be followed by the second with the fidelity of interaction as the main dimension. Should pursue the speed and quantity, as far as possible in the early product multi-trial, multiple iterations, in order to find new ideas and reduce the risk of the project later. So I defined this for rapid prototyping: Prototyping in the early stages of the project to find new ideas and test designs.

On the quest for quantity, a short story is inserted, as can be seen from Bill Buxton's sketching user experience book: On the first day, the pottery teacher said he wanted to split the students into two groups, and the students sitting on the left in the studio would only make them The number of pots was scored, while the students on the right were only able to assess the quality of the pottery they made. The process was very simple. Finally, on the day of class, the teacher brought the weight scale in the bathroom in the home to a group of calorie students. The total weight of the jar was fifty pounds for "A" and forty pounds for "B" And so on. Quality assessment group of students as long as a jar, but as long as perfect can get "A". A curious thing happened to the final judgment: the best works came from the students in the quantitative assessment group. It seems that when the quantitative assessment group worked hard to make more pottery works, they constantly learned something new from their mistakes while the students from the quality assessment group sat thinking about how to use theory to make "perfect" works, and eventually Can not see the results of their efforts, leaving only a lot of vague theory and lifeless clay. The pursuit of quality group, the result was lost in the quality of the pursuit of the number of the group, while surprised, think carefully, is indeed so child. Recalling the past design experience is easy to find, when we repeatedly polish a design, ideas have fallen into the trap, the best way to jump out is to break the. But abandoning a design that has taken a lot of time on it is generally tough for the designer; the higher the design's completion, the more inclined the designer is to refine or improve the design, rather than re-inventing it from scratch design. So fast prototyping "fast" word is very important, fast to the pursuit of quantity. As the saying goes: martial arts world, unswervingly broken, but fast not broken ^ _ ^ The most commonly used design tool is the paper and pen, the output draft is a sketch (paper wireframe).

Sketches have the advantage of being fast, cheap, and unobtrusive (compared to software, pen and paper are much cheaper to obtain than a computer, and what designers want to express is often influenced by the software itself or by the designer's mastery of the software skills Limit), easy to abandon. Pen and paper as a tool, it is indeed the preferred conceptual design stage. What is the preferred tool for rapid prototyping? I think about it, there should be a few requirements: 1. Very low learning and start-up costs 2. Quick and efficient drawing capabilities 3. Can achieve interactive actions There are a few tools to achieve these goals. Axure RP or omni graffle Although the learning curve is a bit steep, it is perfectly capable of rapid prototyping for those who are used to it. In particular, based on omni graffle a large number of stencil, can be a very quick prototype. However, I still want to push ppt / keynote as a quick prototyping tool, though by comparison, they look amateur lot. (Forgive me, as a tool control, I too tangled TT)

First of all, ppt / keynote is the standard on most win / mac machines and, to the extent it is attainable, they are the tallest, eliminating the need to install a huge piece of software separately. Well, most people do not care about this point. In output terms, most designers choose to use pdf / swf as their final output format to ensure that the final result runs perfectly on the client or other machine. But this brings a drawback is that the source file and the final output is two things (in fact ps / ai what the same problem). In other words, modify the design, be sure to open the source file to do that program can! And then have to re-export a design draft can be used to display. Most designers may have been accustomed to this, so I did not think this is a problem (but this is one of the reasons I like to use fw, fw source document that is the draft, do not have to export again; fw Another advantage is the huge source file small). However, the benefits of ppt / keynote is that you can choose not to export the pdf, but to show the source directly to each other, according to the broadcast on it. Then exit the playback mode can be immediately modified, ask what kind of software can do it. Maybe some people have to challenge, even if they can be modified immediately, but ppt / keynote can do things is limited, a lot of things I still have to complete in ps ah. So I recommend the following two sites, are based on the keynote template, pay attention to slightly, all the templates are drawn in the keynote.

So Keynotopia Keynote kungfu So with keynote as an example, it has more powerful drawing power than most designers just expected to use as presention. In addition, it has features like a motherboard that save us a lot of time, which is also in line with the "fast" esoteric. Finally, ppt / keynote also has animation effects, including scene switching animation and object animation. Can be used to do? A control zoom in, you can use the keynote magic move to simulate! Including iphone settings interface is generally flipped to the back, this effect can also be completely used to achieve flip. For an archetypal quest for speed, this can be a surprise. Finished the advantages, let's talk about shortcomings. The biggest drawback is the free template is too small, the above two links in the keynote template are money, and the effect of the free-domineering. In addition the scope of application of the free template is also limited, so in this piece also requires designers to spend a lot of energy. However, foreign keynote prototype designers are more and more, just two days ago to see a pixelmator interview, their designers are using keynote prototype.

Even the prototype of a drawing software can be achieved using keynote, then what else is not it?

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