Early prototyping of mobile applications
What is a prototype?
A set of sketches on paper, photoshop "screenshots", HTML-screens, "lively" javascript, working layout?
And now with the amendment: a prototype of a phone application. Is it enough to evaluate the interfaces of the mobile application, looking at the desktop screen or paper diagrams?
I guess not. I think that a prototype installed on a device that allows you to see all parts of the future UI “in action” is not a luxury, but one of the most crucial and necessary development stages. What are its advantages and how many resources will have to be spent on it? I must say that this is not about games.
Naturally, such a prototype has a limitation on the set of UI elements, and the computational functionality is almost or completely absent.
It seems that such a prototype should be created by a UI designer. It should not program, but should offer a “running application.” To do this, he needs something more than Photoshop. He needs a workplace in the development environment. And at the moment more and more development environments offer him such a nest!
For discussion, I would single out 2 questions:
Let us turn to the issue price. Will this stage draw half the project budget and 3 months of work, or can everything be implemented faster and cheaper?
They say that paper prototypes need to be drawn in 1-2 days, quickly discussed and edited, and then thrown away. Are we ready to evaluate the advantages of a working prototype in an additional week and a half of work? Or maybe it can also be done in 1-2 days, if you get the hang of it?
I will give a short list of tools, the creators of which are clearly concerned with creating a designer’s workplace in their environment. I hope you complete the list and highlight the importance of the representatives.
You can start with a faithful anathema Jobs flash.
Adobe in the broadest front attracted designers to create something that programmers have always been doing. And in the latest versions of its products, the company demonstrates a desire to organize a full-fledged workplace in the development environment for the UI designer.
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What have you always boasted about? "Native cross-platform". However, now they are showing off with a new tool for application designers! And in the presentations focus on the visual effects that designers peck at, like ravens on glass.
What does the omnipresent M $ offer? In addition to the unambiguous promotion of SilverLight as a basic tool for developing business applications, she rolled out a cool tool for prototyping. Out of the box templates even have ready fake data sets. In the application, it is enough just to set parameters, such as “40 elements, each consists of a picture, title and text” and in the emulator / device you will immediately get a “ready-made online store”, “contact list” or “news feed” - who likes what!
It's safe to say that a UI designer will need several days rather than several weeks to create a user interface using a specialized tool in the development environment. The most attractive thing is that this “shell” can then be “filled” by the developer and the prototype will not fly away into the basket, like its paper counterpart.
For example, Apple, promoting the concept of Model-View-Controller, just hints, in my opinion, on the distribution of responsibilities in the project: the data structure to the architect, management to the developer, mapping to the UI designer.
What do you think about working prototypes in the initial stages of the project?
A set of sketches on paper, photoshop "screenshots", HTML-screens, "lively" javascript, working layout?
And now with the amendment: a prototype of a phone application. Is it enough to evaluate the interfaces of the mobile application, looking at the desktop screen or paper diagrams?
I guess not. I think that a prototype installed on a device that allows you to see all parts of the future UI “in action” is not a luxury, but one of the most crucial and necessary development stages. What are its advantages and how many resources will have to be spent on it? I must say that this is not about games.
What is it about?
It will be about mockup - a working prototype containing the main / all parts of the application, the controls displaying the content (fake data), etc., and allowing navigation / solving user tasks.Naturally, such a prototype has a limitation on the set of UI elements, and the computational functionality is almost or completely absent.
It seems that such a prototype should be created by a UI designer. It should not program, but should offer a “running application.” To do this, he needs something more than Photoshop. He needs a workplace in the development environment. And at the moment more and more development environments offer him such a nest!
For discussion, I would single out 2 questions:
- Does the working prototype have advantages over the schematic representation and how big are they?
- How much and whose labor will be needed to create and work with such a prototype?
The advantages of a prototype mobile application.
We will build on a set of screens in the form of sketches or elaborated “screenshots” or a hefty state diagram, like from “classical prototyping schemes”. So, the benefits:- A visual way to work with the interface in its “native” four-inch, for example, form. Type, "small screen, thick fingers."
- Evaluation of ease of use, ergonomics of the application, the actual navigation on it
in the process of testing user scripts. - The ability to connect to the discussion of a wide range of people in the project, and not just "possessing imagination."
- The possibility of a rather detailed implementation of all blocks of an application or even the entire UI in all details.
- Bringing a prototype to the "final product" through the use of graphic design.
Let us turn to the issue price. Will this stage draw half the project budget and 3 months of work, or can everything be implemented faster and cheaper?
They say that paper prototypes need to be drawn in 1-2 days, quickly discussed and edited, and then thrown away. Are we ready to evaluate the advantages of a working prototype in an additional week and a half of work? Or maybe it can also be done in 1-2 days, if you get the hang of it?
IDE developers are thinking about UI designers!
I will give a short list of tools, the creators of which are clearly concerned with creating a designer’s workplace in their environment. I hope you complete the list and highlight the importance of the representatives.
You can start with a faithful anathema Jobs flash.
UI designer tools
Flash catalyst
Adobe in the broadest front attracted designers to create something that programmers have always been doing. And in the latest versions of its products, the company demonstrates a desire to organize a full-fledged workplace in the development environment for the UI designer.
')
QT quick.
What have you always boasted about? "Native cross-platform". However, now they are showing off with a new tool for application designers! And in the presentations focus on the visual effects that designers peck at, like ravens on glass.
Expression Blend for Windows Phone 7.
What does the omnipresent M $ offer? In addition to the unambiguous promotion of SilverLight as a basic tool for developing business applications, she rolled out a cool tool for prototyping. Out of the box templates even have ready fake data sets. In the application, it is enough just to set parameters, such as “40 elements, each consists of a picture, title and text” and in the emulator / device you will immediately get a “ready-made online store”, “contact list” or “news feed” - who likes what!
Results
It's safe to say that a UI designer will need several days rather than several weeks to create a user interface using a specialized tool in the development environment. The most attractive thing is that this “shell” can then be “filled” by the developer and the prototype will not fly away into the basket, like its paper counterpart.
For example, Apple, promoting the concept of Model-View-Controller, just hints, in my opinion, on the distribution of responsibilities in the project: the data structure to the architect, management to the developer, mapping to the UI designer.
What do you think about working prototypes in the initial stages of the project?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/109877/
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