A tool is enough? Prototyping is not that simple!

Prototyping is an essential part of the software design and development process, but now we can see a variety of prototype design tools to dazzle people. If you just choose one of these tools and feel that the prototyping tool needs only one, it's enough for the entire design development process, you're wrong. The fact that these prototyping tools are connected is a complete design process.

Sketch/wireframe stage: Pen, whiteboard, Balsamiq, Mockplus

Whether it is art design or user experience design, or user interface design, the first thing to do is to draw sketches, draft. When we are imaginative, the work of recording is given to them. Paper pens and white boards Needless to say, thousands of years old ancestors left a good thing for us to solve too many record problems. Balsamiq, Mockplus, and other tools that can generate wireframes are the Gospel of new century technology to designers. Balsamiq as a static wireframe tool has regained a lot of users with a sketch style. Although the changes in recent years are not very large, but still have a solid user base. Mockplus, as a rookie in the industry, not only passed the sketch style, but also added a realistic line block diagram to meet the needs of more people.

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Interactive design phase: Axure, Justinmind, Mockplus, Uxpin

The design of the wireframe is over, and the next step is to add interactive actions to them. Interaction, as a key factor that affects the user experience in the running of a program, is not a bit sloppy. In the early days of the industry, when there were no professional designers, many programmers took up the task of prototyping, and that is why Axure and Framerjs are so much in the field of prototype design. However, today's product iterations are so fast that there is no time to write code in the prototyping process, and agile development has come roaring. And as the number of professional designers increases every year, the choice of tools also becomes diverse. Younger, lighter interactive design tools enjoy more benefits. Mockplus and Uxpin are the more representative two Agile interactive design tools.

Mockplus is not just a simple wireframe tool, it minimizes the complexity of prototyping by means of a drag-and-drop operation and a high degree of visualization. There are three ways to create interactions and eight test previews that are really bright. While Uxpin is doing interactive design, its team members share a lot of books on design thinking and design trends, which are good for unwinding.

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Interface Demonstration Stage: Invision, Flinto, Principle, Chainco

There is a general commonality in the interface demonstration class tools, which is that they have no way of generating components themselves. The components and pages of these tools are derived from the export files of other image class tools, and Invision is a good representation. Instead of bundling with a fixed image processing tool like flinto or principle, Invision can upload and import various types of images and design files. Its operation content mainly with the Hot zone settings and page jump. Flinto and principle are more focused on page state switching.

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Each design phase of a program is not completely covered by a single prototype design tool. It is the best strategy to choose the right tools according to your responsibilities.

A tool is enough? Prototyping is not that simple!