Prototyping

Prototyping book now available in EPUB format

2010-03-19T14:22:48Z

Todd Zaki Warfel's Prototyping: A Practitioner's Guide is now available in EPUB format. Grab a copy for your iPhone or Sony Reader and prototype on the go!

Now on Sale

2009-12-01T04:10:02Z

It's official. After nine months of research and nearly two years in the making, my book, Prototyping: a practitioner's guide has launched. I wrote Prototyping for anyone who's involved in the process of designing (software) products. If you're a designer, developer, or business person involved in designing and building products, chances are you'll find something beneficial in Prototyping.

The first part of the book provides a number of helpful case studies and tips for selling prototyping to your boss and clients as part of the design process--one of the biggest challenges we face in the user experience field today. The next couple of chapters provide eight guiding principles I've developed in the past couple of years for improving the success of prototyping in the design process.

Then you'll find six chapters packed with hands-on tutorials for prototyping with paper, Powerpoint, Visio, Axure RP, Fireworks, and even HTML. Each chapter starts with the pros and cons of the methods or tools, then walks you through basic and advanced techniques for using the tool. You'll find the example files for these chapters on the book's website. You can even grab my iPhone stencil for Fireworks--entirely vector.

And finally, I wrap the book up with a chapter on how to effectively prepare for and conduct usability testing on your prototype. I even include a sample waiver you can use with participants and a test guide.

This book wouldn't have happened without the help and support of a number of people. First, I want to thank Lou Rosenfeld and the advisory board at Rosenfeld Media. I really learned a lot in the process.

I hope every author out there is fortunate enough to have an editor who balances tradition with the willingness to try something new. My editor, Marta Justak, did just that. I can't thank Marta enough for working with me on this book and ensuring that it stayed true to my vision.

I'd like to thank the following people for contributing their wisdom to this book: Bill Scott of Netflix, Anders Ramsay an independent UX consultant, David Verba of Adaptive Path, Robert Reimann of frog design, Chris Pallé an independent UX consultant, Victor Hsu of Axure, Scott Mathews of Xplane, Tom Humbarger of iRise, Robert Hoekman, Jr. of Miskeeto, Joe Sokohl of Regular Joe Consulting, Nathan Curtis of EightShapes, Henk Wijnholds and Stefan Wobben of Concept7, Jonathan Baker-Bates of Expedia, and Fred Beecher of Evantage.

I also had a number of brilliant people review the chapters I wrote on specific methods and tools to make sure they were accurate. I'd like to thank Jeff Patton, an independent UX consultant and Agile coach, for reviewing my paper prototyping chapter, Anders Ramsay for reviewing my chapters on Visio and HTML, Alan Musselman Lead UI Designer and Fireworks Evangelist at Adobe for reviewing my chapter on Fireworks, and Fred Beecher for reviewing my chapter on Axure RP Pro.
And last, but most certainly not least, I'd like to thank my wife, Angela, for gently reminding me that this book won't write itself.

Now, what are you waiting for. Go pick up a copy of Prototyping: a practitioner's guide, start prototyping and change your design process forever. And when you're done reading it, don't forget to write a review on Amazon.

Going to press

2009-10-07T23:05:33Z

Hi, Todd's publisher here. Good news; Todd's book, Prototyping: A Practitioner's Guide goes to press tomorrow! We're anticipating it going on sale, right here at the Rosenfeld Media site, at the end of the month.

What's the best way to find out when the book goes on sale (and get a discount)? Take 15 seconds and sign up for a publication notification. And take 30 more to peruse these wonderful testimonials from the lucky ducks who got to read the galley.

Axure Case Studies Wanted

2009-01-26T22:31:34Z

If you use Axure RP for prototyping and have a good case study that you'd like to contribute to the book, contact me. I'll need it within the next 2-3 weeks.

Prototyping with Fireworks CS4

2009-01-04T20:08:14Z

Well, I'm working on the Fireworks chapter for my book, Practical Prototyping and dug up this great video by Alan Musselman, one of the application engineers on the Adobe Fireworks CS4 team. Alan gives a great introductory overview to some of the powerful new features and enhancements in Fireworks CS4.

I've been using CS4 since it was in Beta, but wasn't aware of some of the powerful enhancements Alan points out in this video, like the asynchronous file saving and ability to have multiple style sets. If you're looking for a great all around prototyping tool that works for lo-fi, hi-fi and can even generate reusable source code, check out Fireworks CS4.

I'll be posting more tips, tricks, and FW CS4 videos in the coming weeks.

PowerPoint and Visio

2008-11-20T17:25:05Z

Just a quick update that I've finished my chapter on Paper Prototyping a few weeks ago. Thanks to my wonderful technical editors, I've got a few revisions to make.

Last weekend I finished up the chapter on PowerPoint and this weekend it will be Visio. After that, there's only a few chapter left to cover: Axure, Flash, Fireworks, HTML, and a short chapter on testing your prototypes.

Each of these chapters has been around 10 pages each. So, they're pretty compact and focused on a hands-on approach. I really like the way the book is shaping up and am looking forward to wrapping up my writing by Dec 31.

Thank God the office is closed 1/2 of December.

Review of 16 Prototyping Tools

2008-11-20T17:24:39Z

Russell Wilson of Dexo Design put together a handy review of 16 prototyping tools.

The only glaring omission is which platform the tools run on, which he covers later in the comments.

Prototyping the Strida2 Folding Bike

2008-10-02T14:09:53Z

Here's a great example of real world prototyping from the inventor of the Strida2 folding bike.

Particularly interesting is how he discusses the prototyping process using sketching, mini models, and full scale prototypes at 1:10-3:15 and how he discusses the critical role of sketching while refining the designs at 6:30-7:15 in the video.

A few key points from Mark's perspective:

He doesn’t worry about which ideas are good and which are bad. Instead, he uses sketching to explore every possible idea.

Once he has dozens of sketches, he evaluates the sketches based the original goals of the product.

Sketches only go so far. The only way to really explore which ideas will work is to build models or prototypes.

Sketching plays a critical part in updating the design as well. He uses sketches to work through his ideas.

First Prototyping Survey Results

2008-08-01T16:35:35Z

Back in June 2008, I ran a survey on prototyping. Close to 200 people participated, primarily from the US. The respondents were nearly 60/40 Male/Female and represented a mix of roles in the UX community.

The goal — challenge some insights I've found through interviews, see who's prototyping, what tools/methods they're using, find some succss stories, find some failures.

The result — as expected, a number of assumptions were validated, while others were challenged. I was surprised a bit by the number of people who's activities were those of a Business Analyst (BAs), which was not an audience I expected to hear from. However, Axure and iRise, two prototyping tools, are relatively common for BAs.

I'm not shy about the fact that I'm not a big fan of surveys, however, they do have their place. My main dislike for surveys is their lack of ability to properly address the "Why?" question.

Good survey design is part art, part science. And in hindsight, I would have changed a few things. Something to learn for future surveys:

There are a lot of tools used in combination to produce prototypes. Asking participants to weight scale their tools to total 100% might have been helpful.

Title is rarely an accurate representation of what people do for a living — at least in the UX field. Close to 20% of people responded perform Business Analyst tasks, but just over 2% self identify as BAs.

A large percentage of participants participate in cross-role activities (e.g. design and usability testing). Maybe next time I'll have role and title as two separate questions, or possibly just dump title all together. I'm really more interested in activities people are performing than what their title is.

Summary Findings

Paper tops the list as the most method, followed by hand-coded HTML is the second most popular method.

Paper, Visio, PowerPoint, Dreamweaver, Axure, and OmniGraffle topped the list for most common tools.

There were an equal number of people using Dreamweaver and Axure.

Visio and PowerPoint are very common tools, especially in larger corporate environments.

OmniGraffle and Keynote are very common in mid-small sized companies.

Visual designers are more likely to use a tool like Dreamweaver to slap-and-map (link together screens with HTML), or PowerPoint/Keynote to present screens as a prototyping method.

Respondants were almost equally split across 1-3 years, 3-5 years, and more than 5 years experience with prototyping.

The most important factor for using a tool/method is time and effort to produce a working prototype, followed by a prototype usable for testing, and price.

I'll be running some additional surveys in the future, which will be more focused on specific methods and tools.

Survey Results

Most Common Methods and Tools for Prototyping
Paper	81%
Hand-coded HTML	58%
Auto generated from Axure, iRise, Visio, Fireworks, or similar	34%
Screen shots/comps linked with HTML (slap-and-map)	34%
Flash, Flex, Blend, or similar	27%
Keynote or PowerPoint	24%
Clickable PDF	21%
Production environment (e.g. Ruby, Java, .Net, PHP, Xcode)	9%
3D models, cardboard, foam core	1%

Experience with Paper Prototyping
5 or more years	34%
More than 1, less than 3 years	32%
More than 3, less than 5 years	17%
Less than 1 year	10%
None	7%

Experience with Digital Prototyping
5 or more years	48%
More than 1, less than 3 years	24%
More than 3, less than 5 years	21%
Less than 1 year	5%
None	2%

Most Important Factors in a Prototyping Tool/Method

Time and effort to produce a working prototype.
Creating usable prototypes for testing.
Price
Learning curve.
Ability to create own GUI widgets and patterns.
Platform independence.
Collaborative/remote design capabilities.
Built-in solutions/patterns (e.g. AJAX transitions)
Built-in GUI widgets.
Creating usable source code.

Tools Used in Prototyping
Paper	77%
Visio	59%
PowerPoint	43%
Dreamweaver	47%
Axure	30%
OmniGraffle	30%
Illustrator	23%
Flash	21%
Acrobat	19%
Fireworks	18%
InDesign	12%
Photoshop	10%
Other HTML editor	4%
Keynote	3%
iRise	0.7%

Primarily Hi-fi vs. Lo-fi Prototypes
Hi-fi	47%
Lo-fi	42%
50/50	11%

Demographics
Male	62%
Female	38%

Title/Role
Interaction Designer/IA	63.2%
Product Manager	8.3%
Presentation Layer Developer	6.3%
Other	6.3%
Researcher, Design Researcher, Usability Analyst	5.6%
UX Manager	3.5%
Application Developer	3.5%
BA	2.1%
Visual Designer	1.4%

Slap-and-map

2008-07-31T19:22:15Z

Still working through all the data from the survey I ran a month ago and came across an interesting term: slap-and-map.

Slap-and-map: slapping images together with HTML to create a prototype.

Most Common Methods for Prototyping

2008-07-28T19:52:33Z

Last month, I ran a survey investigating a number of things related to prototyping. One of these was a question of the type of prototypes people are often creating.

In order of most common to least common, here they are:

Paper — 81%

Hand coded html — 58%

Auto generated (e.g. Axure, iRise, Visio, Fireworks or similar) — 39%

Clickable Screenshots (using HTML) — 34%

Interactive Flash, Flex, AIR, Blend, or similar — 27%

Keynote or PowerPoint — 24%

Clickable PDFs — 21%

Production Environment (e.g. Rails, PHP, .Net, Java, Xcode, C) — 9%

3D Models (e.g. Cardboard, Foam Core, Circuit-boards) — 1.2%

Participants were allowed to select any and all methods they used. Close to 200 participants responded, representing a mix of researchers, designers, developers, product managers, and business analysts.

I'll be posting more findings in the future.

Upcoming August Events

2008-07-22T15:41:37Z

Upcoming Appearances and Presentations

Aug 5, 2008: "Agile and Paper Prototyping", at Agile 2008

Upcoming July Events

2008-07-22T15:41:00Z

Upcoming Appearances and Presentations

July 24, 2008 6pm: "8 Guiding Principles of Prototyping", at "PhillyCHI

Agile and Paper Prototyping—Tuesday August 5

2008-07-21T15:18:19Z

I'll be teaching a 1/2 day workshop on Agile and Paper Prototyping at the Agile2008 conference on Tuesday, August 5th in beautiful Toronto, Canada.

8 Guiding Principles of Prototyping—Thursday, July 24

2008-07-21T15:13:33Z

I'll be giving a talk on the 8 guiding principles of prototyping at our great space in olde city Philadelphia this Thursday, July 24th at 6:30 pm. Get directions.