Product managers and prototyping have to say the story

As a product manager, it has been argued that prototype design should not be just a designer's job, it should also be a product manager's job - especially in the early stages of demand discussions.

A product skeleton and soul, is given by the product manager; blood and meat, is given by the R & D engineers; facial features, limbs are given by the designers. However, before the flesh out, how to sketch out a complete "skeleton" for your team members is a compulsory homework for your product manager. Because of these skeleton sketches, it will directly affect the co-workers of all positions on the team to understand the consistency of demand, effectively reduce the meaningless understanding of differences caused by PK; the same time, can directly affect the efficiency of early communication and discussion of needs to help the team as soon as possible Meet the needs of the agreement.

To summarize, the "skeleton" diagram that needs to be sketched is the prototype design that product managers need to make.

·text

Einstein said, if I can not picture is, I can not understand it.

Most of the time, product managers are able to picture their own product design ideas, but in a way, product managers need to do more than Einstein. After all, not all people can understand the theory of relativity, and product manager prototype design but need to ensure that the team in different positions, responsible for different jobs, different knowledge structure of each member can understand it completely.

Because the previous need to communicate with colleagues in various positions, it also determines the prototype design done by the product manager needs to have the following characteristics:

1. Low fidelity, high efficiency - do not have to put too much energy in the beautiful and interactive logic, you only need to express the core pages and functions can be;

2 easy to modify, easy to spread - can be easily modified to supplement, at the same time can easily export, share to the project team owner;

Among the common tools available:

Whiteboard + pen, windows - really low fidelity and high efficiency, but can not be easily disseminated and modified at any time;

excel, visio - They are more suitable for the functional description of the logic in accordance with norms to do standardized text description;

Powerpoint, Photoshop - They are too inefficient and tend to spend a lot of time doing powerpoint speaking neither power nor point ...

To summarize, the prototyping of product managers must be "done efficiently, easily demonstrated, and fully understood by all members" in the process of communicating with each member, debriefing and validating requirements, and rapidly iterating (see below)

As the saying goes, workers should do their thing first.

Admittedly, I believe Millet and Rifle can also win the revolution (I've seen some experts use excel can make staggering prototype design), but is not it better to choose a suitable prototype design tool?

Next, we recommend some prototype design tools for product managers:

Web prototyping tools

1. Axure
http://www.axure.com/
http://www.axure.org/

Axure has been mentioned too many times on too many occasions, there is no need to say anything here.

advantage:
Component / instance rich in resources; see it happen - almost perfect demo Cons:
Learning curve is steep, need to invest more time; personally think that is not suitable for product manager to use, of course, suggest that students just go to take the time to learn.

2. GUI Design Studio
http://www.carettasoftware.com/guidesignstudio/

If you compare Axure to Photoshop in a prototyping design, then GUI Design Studio is a windows drawing board

advantage:
Simple, compact, easy to learn, easy to use; prototype simulation demo function in no way inferior to Axure

Disadvantages:
More focused on the windows desktop software prototype design, web, mobile phone design help limited; Chinese crack version features are missing

Pencil
http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/Screenshots.html
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8487

Pencil is a prototyping tool in the form of an FF plug-in, as simple as its name, suitable for quick prototyping of web prototyping.

advantage:
FF plug-in operation; simple, compact, fast and convenient

Disadvantages:
Component library is small, limited functionality

Mockingbird
http://gomockingbird.com/

Mockbird is an online prototyping tool, rich in components, used in web-side, mobile-end product design.

Provides a complete browser-based product prototype design services, using Cappuccino's JavaScript open source framework, to more realistic simulation Axure such desktop software, giving users a great sense of intimacy. No Flash, No IE, All in Canvas, Apple Style!

advantage:
Online to use, loading speed; more rich components can be saved online

Disadvantages:
Does not support IE, Chrome support is not good; output PNG does not support Chinese

Mockflow
http://app.mockflow.com/mockflow/

Mockflow is the recommended tool for this time, also online version, its rich and friendly components and powerful, and supports an online shared component library! Very suitable for web end and mobile phone prototype product design.

advantage:
Component library and its rich, cool interface; online version of running smoothly, powerful right-click menu; support for Chinese, multi-document online save

Disadvantages:
Online saves space limitations; demo features are slightly inferior to Mockups

· Prototype part of mobile software design

1. Mockups
http://www.balsamiq.com/demos/mockups/Mockups.html

Mockups is a personal software that designers developed for their own convenience, and developers themselves did not think the hand-drawn style and simple components make the software so popular, in fact, the most attractive place is the perfect presentation function .

advantage:
For the mobile phone prototype design and development, simulation demo is very powerful; style is very cute ...

Disadvantages:
Based on Adobe AIR, the software performance is general when the file size is large; the support for Chinese multi-font is poor, and the insert picture is not supported.

IPhone Mockup
http://iphonemockup.lkmc.ch/

iPhone mockup is a more focused and iPhone software prototype design tools, provides all the components commonly used on the iPhone.

advantage:

Support for online collaboration, the same design can be modified by different people; iPhone design components rich, and provide hand-painted and standard two styles

Disadvantages:

Less function, does not support export to picture files, does not support the presentation;

Lumzy

http://lumzy.com/app/

Lumzy is based on the prototype product design software on the Flash / Flex platform, and its components are also suitable for cell phone prototype design.

advantage:

Interface friendly, feature-rich; support for image insertion, preview, export function; support hand-painted, mac, win three styles to switch.

Disadvantages:

The components for the phone are not as rich as the first two.

4. iPlotz

http://iplotz.com/app/index.php

Like Lumzy, iPlotz is also an online prototyping software based on the Flash / Flex platform.

Compared to the former, iPlotz provides component libraries specifically for the iPhone, as well as very powerful project / time management capabilities.

advantage:

Same as Lumzy, Contains iPhone specialized component library, supports html preview and export.

Summary & Suggestion:

There is no best tool, only the one that best suits you. As long as the tool can express the design intent efficiently and accurately, it is a good tool!

Draw first with pen and paper, outline the overall structure of the product; then prototype design.

First tool to make the most commonly used components, and its group & lock & save, this can save a lot of time.

· Conclusion

Finally, share a few personal feelings of work, and encourage each other:

The product manager is not necessarily a specialist, but you should be as versatile as possible; even a full-time, not a god, trust your partner fully; there are certainly no pig teammates in the team, so do not treat yourself as God ...

To fully trust the designer's professional ability, always bear in mind their own representatives of the user, the other members of the team is also a user; Do not be too subjective influence their own questions and even challenge the designer's professional ability.

Disagreeing the needs of understanding dispels the prototyping stage of the product manager; liberates the designer and lets them devote themselves fully into the design work after the demand confirmation.

Let's take over the guns of designers and fight with Hua Li.

This article comes from: http://djt.open.qq.com/article-114-1.html