This last Wednesday, we hosted a webinar called Intro to Sketching Prototypes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMMn88sP2NQ). These are the slides from that presentation. You can download the prototyping tool shown in the presentation here: http://www.infragistics.com/products/indigo-studio Webinar Description: Sketching prototypes? Yep, you heard that right—you'll have to watch to learn what it means! :) This webinar tangos with the theory behind effective prototyping, illustrates some of the tools at our disposal, and demonstrates how to effectively leverage a new software prototyping tool that tackles this practice head on--Indigo Studio. You'll come away more empowered to design software that exceeds expectations.

1. Intro to Sketching Prototypes
By Ambrose Little

2. Ambrose is just this guy, ya know?
Designing and developing software since the late '90s at companies as small as one and as
large as Verizon, working on internal systems, Web sites, and commercial software products.
Principal Design Technologist at Infragistics
(Product Manager, Indigo Studio)
Tweet @ambroselittle, @indigodesigned
http://linkedin.com/in/ambroselittle
Blog: ambroselittle.com
#prototyping #ux #ixd #design

3. Prototypes, What Are They?

4. What’s your definition?
Functional/Interactive?
Full App Simulation?
(from dictionary.com)

5. The Two Bills
Bill Verplank Bill Buxton

6. BillV says…
“‘Prototyping’ is externalizing and making concrete a design idea
for the purpose of evaluation.”

7. Self-Reflection
Expert Review
Team Critique
Client Review
User Feedback/Critique
“Evaluation” is a big word.
Observing Users

8. “Prototyping” is a big word, too.
But what’s at its core is that it’s not the final product. It’s on the opposite end
of the lifecycle. One might say then that, ideally, a prototype is “sketchy”…

9. BillB says…
Sketching in the broad sense, as an activity, is not just a byproduct of
design. It is central to design thinking and learning.
Sketching is:
Quick. Timely. Inexpensive. Disposable. Plentiful.
A sketch suggests and explores more than confirms.
A sketch has minimal detail: “Going beyond ‘good enough’ is a negative.”
Sketching is a process of dialog, of learning.

10. BillB also says…
“Sketches are not Prototypes!”
But he goes on to say this is because: “Much of this has to do with the
related attributes of cost, timeliness, quantity, and disposability. Essentially,
the investment in a prototype is larger than in a sketch, hence there are
fewer of them, they are less disposable, and they take longer to build.”

11. So… can you sketch prototypes?

12. Emphatically, Yes!
Yuhuh!
The value of ‘sketching’ lies in its disposability, in the ability to efficiently
explore many ideas with low cost.
Sketching prototypes is about just this—using tools that make it efficient to
create many, quick, timely, disposable “sketches” of your design ideas so
that you can get them out of your head and evaluate them.

13. How to Effectively Sketch Prototypes

14. 1. What are you trying to learn?

15. Some Reasons for Software Prototyping
Suggest/explore a user experience flow.
Sketching Prototypes
Suggest/explore particular interfaces on their own.
Suggest/explore transitions & animations.
Communicate a particular design for implementation.
Full on application simulation.
Evaluate the feasibility of a design.

16. 2. Select the Right Tool for the Purpose

17. Suggest/Explore a User Experience Flow
Writing – just narrate a story/scenario. (Leave out UI details.)
Storyboarding – narrate with words and pictures.
http://uxmag.com/articles/storyboarding-in-the-software-design-process
Sketching Interaction Flow – design UI step-by-step for a particular flow.

18. Challenges
with
Wireframes
for Flow

19. Suggest/Explore Particular Interfaces
Pen & Paper/Whiteboard – literally sketch in the traditional sense.
Wireframing – lay out static, low-fi UIs with a software tool.
Multiple Flows – design branches of different flows on same UI.

20. Static
Wireframes
Require
More Notes
and Are
Hard to
Evaluate

21. Suggest/Explore Transitions/Animations
Interactive Prototyping Tool – design animations with timelines, etc.
Animation Frameworks – code a prototype with an animation framework.

22. Communicate for Implementation
Basically any artifact you create can be used to communicate design
intent, so a sketchy prototype could be used for this purpose.
The drawback is it is probably lacking in a lot of details, so you will have
to fill those in somehow: annotations, further fleshing out the prototype,
ad hoc answering questions, etc.
These activities quickly leave the sketching aspect behind, so reserve
filling in details for after the sketching phase when you’ve generated,
synthesized, and iterated on your sketches.

23. 3. Keep It Throwawayly!
Sketching your prototype will utterly fail if you don’t stay focused.
- Prefer single path prototypes early on.
- Omit irrelevant details (styling, perfect animations, pixel perfection, exact copy)
- Fake it! Use images, icons, layers, shapes, groups—whatever is good enough to
explore and evaluate the idea.
- This is not for production! Never start with the idea it will turn into productional
code. Bad!

24. 4. Don’t Stop with Your First Concept

25. 5. Evaluate with REAL USERS.
You don’t have to evaluate every single concept, but you should at least
evaluate one if not two prototypes that seem promising.
They don’t have to be fully functional, and probably shouldn’t be!
If not real users, then a user-like substance—someone who resembles
them that is not on the team and is not the client/stakeholder.

26. Keys to Effectively Sketching Prototypes
1. Know the purpose of your prototype—and don’t get distracted.
2. Select the right tool/method for your purpose.
3. Keep it throwawayly! Do the bare minimum.
4. Don’t stop with one concept—be fruitful and multiply. 
5. Evaluate with real users.

27. Sources Quoted

28. Enjoy! Version 1 is Free Forever.
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