Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Alexa Andrzejewski

Alexa Andrzejewski — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:05:50 GMT

Yeah, those are great tips! I think what Kate suggested would be a great direction.

Alexa Andrzejewski — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:16:53 GMT

Hi!

I don’t know if this was covered already, but the issue I had when trying to use PDF prototypes was that if I had to make an edit to the original visio file and export it again, all of my work linking and doing rollovers was completely lost. I didn’t know of any way to update the visuals without recreating the PDF and all of the links. This is pretty critical in our design process, since often it’s the prototype that brings certain issues to light and results in the need to make additional wireframe tweaks before testing.

Have you been able to overcome this? Is there a way to update the graphics while keeping all of the links/interactivity?

Thanks!

Alexa

Alexa Andrzejewski — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:30:27 GMT

Hi Isaac!

HTML prototyping can definitely make sense, especially if you’re good enough at XHTML and close enough to the engineers (and final product) to write code that would actually be useful to them. Julie Stanford wrote a great article about HTML prototyping for those who are interested:

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/html_wireframes_and_pr…

But a lot of the work we do as interaction designers is not quite at that point (and many of us aren’t good enough coders for coding to be time well spent)—we just need a way to communicate an idea quickly and efficiently. Hiring a prototyper is an option, of course—but that introduces other communication challenges and requires time and resources that aren’t always available.

If we’re already creating wireframes, being able to hook up these graphics and make them feel interactive can be a much better use of time than trying to do front-end coding, especially early in concepting. As some of you mentioned, there are some more targeted prototyping tools than Flash on the horizon or already out for doing this. I know some of these tools even promise to generate code as you visually prototype… but I’ll be curious to see how that sort of code-generation fits into designers’ and developers’ real workflows.

Thanks for all the comments so far everyone!

Alexa

Alexa Andrzejewski — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:32:43 GMT

Hi Eddie!

I guess I forgot to mention that there’s a Part II yet to come! Part II covers all of the steps for completing the rest of the tutorial. I’d be happy to send you the rest, just email me at: alexa at adaptivepath.com

Alexa

Alexa Andrzejewski — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:30:19 GMT

Hi Andres,

Just like wireframes, prototypes can have varying levels of fidelity, and choosing the level of fidelity for either is always a tricky question. It’s a balancing act: On one hand, clients can’t always understand or appreciate the concepts when they’re too rough, but on the other, if they feel too finished, clients will get attached to or critical of the details.

The good news is, this prototyping method works for any level of fidelity that works for wireframes. You can give your wireframes a sketchy or wirey look and feel during early stages (even using a “pencil drawing” effect or using scanned sketches as the artwork), and in later stages, you can use fully-featured visual comps in your prototypes. The perceptions of finished-ness, I think, are generally shaped more by the artwork than the interactivity.

Happy prototyping!

Alexa