Windows Interface Prototyping

Windows Interface Components

This topic explores how prototyping a user interface can help minimize design flaws and ensure a successful user experience. Introduction Sometimes, as a project moves forward, small assumptions and well-intentioned but poor decisions accumulate, turning hours of work into a lousy user experience. The smart teams eliminate their mistakes before they ship by using a technique called UI prototyping. Combined with usability studies, prototypes keep teams headed in the right direction.

Why Prototype? Prototyping is a means of exploring ideas before you invest in them.

16 Design Tools for Prototyping and. Axure allows for complete flexibility when designing an interface, from. SmartDraw is only available for Windows. Do you know any user interface prototyping software for windows desktop applications.

All experienced craftspeople and engineers create prototypes of their work before they build anything: Architects create models out of paper or cardboard, or with virtual reality tools. Aeronautic engineers use wind tunnels.

Bridge builders create stress models. Software and Web designers create mock-ups of how users will interact with their designs. The best reason to prototype is to save time and resources. The value of a prototype is that it is a facade—like a Hollywood set, where only the front of the building is constructed. Relative to the real product, prototypes are easy and inexpensive to create.

So, for a minimal investment, usability and design problems can be found and the UI adjusted before substantial investment is made in the final design and technologies. On examining the needs of a particular project, reasons for creating a prototype other than saving money might be found. Is the goal to explore a new interface model? Make modifications to one part of the existing design? Investigate a new technology? Before starting, it's important to be clear about why you're building what you're building. Beginning with clear goals helps make effort direct and effective.

The reasons for creating prototypes fall into three basic categories: • Proof of concept. Among some teams there are disagreements about the future direction of a project. Cinquanta Sfumature Di Nero Ebook Pdf. A prototype can be used to prove that an idea or new approach has merit or value. Power Rangers Super Megaforce The Legendary Battle. A prototype can help illustrate that an idea works, express its qualities in a visual and interactive way, and/or motivate team members to think about the problem from another perspective.

• Design exploration. If designing interactive software, the only way to explore how something will be used is to create a mock-up and interact with it. Sometimes the mock-up is tied to a usability study, where parts of the prototype can be evaluated in a structured way. Sometimes it's just a way to clearly express to a developer how something should work or look. In many cases, a designer might simply be experimenting, in an effort to get a sense for what approach might work. Anyone on the team can use prototypes to explore design issues, although designers are generally the most skilled. Design explorations should be directed at trying to solve specific problems that are recognized in the product.