Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Todd Zaki Warfel

Todd Zaki Warfel — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 13:04:47 GMT

I would not only like to read it, but I’d also contribute–having started two companies myself. When I started Messagefirst, it was bootstrapped with $10k of my own cash. I’ve never taken investment capital or a loan to make the company work. Even this year, as we’re going through a growing year and have 4 hires spec’d out, we’ll be doing it on income, not investments from outside resources.

Todd Zaki Warfel — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 23:46:31 GMT

When I was an army of one, I calculated my rate as folllows -
1. Amount I want to make each year. Let’s say just to make things easy, it was $100,000
2. How many weeks of vacation I want each year (4). That leaves me with 48 weeks to bill/work.
3. Number of hours I want to work each week (35)
4. Take the amount you want to make, divided by the number of weeks, divided by the hours you want to work.
5. Now add 50% to cover overhead, administrative time, and time for marketing new business

In this example it would be $90 (rounded up). If you aren’t getting enough work, chances are you’re not good enough, the market in your area is stale, or your rate is too high (or maybe a combination). If you’re barely keeping your head above water, raise your rates. It will weed out the clients you really don’t want to work with. It’s a scary thing to do, but it’s better in the end.

Also, it’s easier to negotiate down on a project than up. Once you say $100/hr, and they bulk, if you really want it, you could do it for less. But if you say $80, then you can’t go up.

Todd Zaki Warfel — Sat, 12 May 2007 02:58:58 GMT

Great review Austin. I think your assessment is pretty accurate. If someone is looking for an encyclopedia, it’s a pretty decent textbook. However, it’s not for the faint of heart,someone looking to brush up on personas, just sharpen their skills, or get a quick how to. This book takes a substantial investment to wade through. I appreciate it’s thoroughness, but really wish the writing style was something that doesn’t lose you in the process of reading it. Sadly, as you suggest, I was gravely disappointed in this book – I had such high hopes. There’s just too much in the book.

As you’ve said, it’s not for all, but it can provide some value to those in our field.

Todd Zaki Warfel — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:53:22 GMT

Great insights for another prototyping tool/method. While this isn’t a method I would use that often, it is good to know that this is not only an option, but one that’s more powerful than most people think—just like paper prototyping.

To Henrik, Scott, Bo, and the other nay-sayers out there, keep in mind that the point of this article isn’t to say this method is for everyone, but rather to show another very viable method for prototyping and testing. I like the way Kyle has debunked a number of myths about PDFs for prototyping here, including simulating AJAX functionality and incorporating video. Unfortunately, the embedded video didn’t work for me since I use Preview instead of Acrobat, but then I probably don’t fit into the majority.

Another benefit Kyle highlights is the ability to use PDFs for remote testing. This is definitely an advantage over paper prototypes.

We could go back and forth on the pros and cons all day, but instead, why not just consider this an option—one you can take or leave at your own discretion. If you want a more comprehensive overview and evaluation, you will be able to get it in my book later this year “Prototyping for Practitioners” from Rosenfield Media.

For me personally, I’m moving away from PDFs for wireframes and more towards prototyping in HTML/CSS. There’s a number of tradeoffs, which you’ll be able to read in greater detail in my book, but here’s a quick summary:

Even though I can code HTML/CSS blind and in my sleep, I’m still faster in Illustrator/InDesign.

PDFs can be used to print out notes on from designers, developers, management, etc.

In the event that HTML/CSS is the final product, there’s less total time in coding a prototype in HTML/CSS if you know what you’re doing, create a framework, and take the care to code to near-production level.

Prototypes are often meant to be a throwaway, or prototype code shouldn’t be used for production. Like it or not, most of the time prototype code is just that—prototype. And in the dozens of interviews I’ve done for my book, most of the time it isn’t and shouldn’t be used for production.
One final note, the fact is that the interaction design industry lacks proper tools for doing our work. We don’t have any real tools dedicated to our discipline. Instead, we are forced to piece together tools here and there to make it work. Visio is a diagraming tool that we’ve hacked to design interactions—poorly. Illustrator is a fantastic drawing program, but it’s bloated and doesn’t provide multiple pages or the ability to do RIA interaction easily. Fireworks is great for interface design and decent for creating HTML/CSS prototypes, but you can’t (shouldn’t) recycle the code and you can’t print the prototype for documentation. iRise—cost prohibitive. Axure—great for quick and dirty prototypes, but again non-recyclable code. HTML/CSS from scratch—it’s from scratch and most designers can’t code HTML in 2008 (shocking, I know). Microsoft’s new Expression—big on promise, small on execution—Windows only, good in theory but fails in practice, and horribly bloated. Adobe So, until we have some proper tools, we should keep our options and toolbox open.