Lo-fi web prototyping

Designers in the agency I work for tend to get nervous when I attempt to scamp up wireframe models. They perceive what I'm doing as inhibiting their creative license -- BUT creativity and pushing the boundaries is something we encourage in our agency all the time.

I've been racking my brains about this...

I listened to a podcast with Bill Buxton recently. Just to "disclaim" myself - I have not had a chance to get my hands on his book and might have totally misinterpreted his message. After that I ran across two more podcasts, one with Tom Wales and the later Kevin Cheng, both from Yahoo. I interpreted the shows in my own way based on their inspiring words. Kevin and Tom focus more on the concept side while Bill had a more practical and functional solution BUT the core message from both sides were.... Start DRAWING!

Just a little background...

In my team concept and the BIG idea drive a project. I work closely with the design team and we tend to find and build solutions without the need for wireframes. I will build the relevant taxonomies and work on the strategic elements after that a designer will mock up a look-and-feel based on my verbal brief and the documentation -- this is then presented to client.

Designers will mock up all the pages as soon a client sign off on the project specification (and go through several reverts if needed). The mock-ups and a functional specification will then end up on the developers' desk.

The problem with the initial mock-up stage (1) is that client end up looking at the pretty pictures ignoring all the IA and strategic solutions, and (2) client can't understand why we take so long to develop our projects especially after we showed them a real-life mock-up of the site in the strategic phase.

So I started drawing...

I'm trying to convince my team manger that we must use Google Maps to serve content for a large development group and thought I'll explain how I see the mini-project rolling out using my new found drawing skillz.

I put pen-to-paper, snapped the drawings with my little digital camera and popped them into Flash. I'm still working on a mini-document to support the flash component but you're welcome to check out the result of my experimentation...

I'd love to get some feedback from you... be gentle :)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• wireframes
• prototype
• information-architecture

[newwavemedia]

I like this kind of prototyping. Although it looks labor-intense, which is ironic for sketches. Did it demand a ton of time just to animate this?

[wernerpuchert]

It actually took me about a day (if I remember) to do. Low-fi stuff like this must be fast to compile else it fails in its purpose. Check out my blog for more info RE this. Thanks for the feedback! :)

[unodewaal]

It looks like you do some cool interaction with the post-it notes :)

Have you tried any prototyping software like Axure or omnigraffle?

[wernerpuchert]

Thanks man. I've read up on Axure and (omnigraffle) - saving up for a Mac on the latter. I have not really explored those options due to budget constraints. The agency I worked for would never spend that amount on UX so it was up to the old Low-fi to prove a point. (which it did ;) )

[AdduJi]

which tool you used?