The number of tools and methodologies for prototyping is pretty staggering. Personally my prototyping tool of choice for the past few years has been Fireworks. The 9-slice scaling, custom symbols, UI element library, and the ability to create multiple pages in the same document and share layers across those pages make me incredibly productive in working out UI designs and communicating those designs to a wide range of stakeholders.
But interactivity was a key thing I felt was missing from my process. I am not an expert with Flash, so I never really got into using it for interactive prototypes. I’ve done many clickable prototypes with Dreamweaver and hand-coded HTML, but the former never worked well for me and the latter always took longer than expected.
Eric and I just finished a round of prototypes for a client where we used Microsoft’s Expression Blend. Our attempts at communicating the design simply through paper or flat mockups were not going well; this particular item really required the ability to click through the process. So we started down a new path of creating a working prototype in Blend.
We presented it yesterday via phone and GoToMeeting, and it seemed to be a big hit. The response from the client was, “Now I get it. When can I click around on this? I really want to try it out.” That’s exactly the response we were going for.
I’m going to post a few more articles about specific aspects of this process over the coming days. If you’re interested in learning more about certain features and benefits of the Expression Studio tools, please leave a comment, and we’ll do our best to cover it.
We get any credit for leading you to this conclusion?
Mark, you had better believe it!