Issue 5 – May 2018
Why prototyping is such an essential tool, prototyping information architecture, prototyping process and fidelity, and: Adobe XD is now free

Happy GDPR, everyone! I hope you all made it through those “entertaining” last few weeks. Regarding this newsletter, I made two major changes: First, I updated the privacy policy which now explains in more detail how your data is used. Please take a look at it. Basically, I will never sell or share your data with anyone and will only use your email address to serve this newsletter. Second, I moved away from MailChimp for list management and sending this newsletter. I’m now using a self-hosted instance of Mailtrain. That way, I have more control over your private data, where it is stored, and who has access to it. If you have any questions about all this or want me to change or delete your personal information please let me know: matthias@prototyping.news.
– All the best! Matthias

Links

Prototyping Early and Often: A Creative Director’s Approach to User-Centered Design

“Prototyping is essential. All designers should advocate for and include it throughout their design process.” – Kathryn McElroy, author of the great O’Reilly book “Prototyping for Designers”, explains why prototyping is such an essential tool for getting feedback and improving ideas over time. And why it is so important to develop a mindset where you are comfortable with testing unfinished ideas in order to make the best result possible.
https://medium.com/@argodesign/prototyping-early-and-often-a-creative-directors-approach-to-user-centered-design-953c974bcf7

Priority Guides: A Content-First Alternative to Wireframes

While wireframes are great for sketching and exploring design ideas, they can have their downsides, too. For example, they tend to limit creativity when visual designers are just coloring wireframes instead of understanding them as a conceptual guideline that can be further improved upon. That’s why Heleen van Nues and Lennart Overkamp suggest “Priority Guides” as an alternative that helps prioritize content at the start of a project.
https://alistapart.com/article/priority-guides-a-content-first-alternative-to-wireframes

Prototyping Information Architecture

In this talk (and transcript) from the IA Summit 2018 in Chicago, Andy Fitzgerald talks about how to use modeling and simulation to more effectively solve the dynamically complex problems we increasingly face as practicing designers of information spaces. Because “while prototyping is important for the validation and testing process, is it equally if not more important for the learning and creation process.” He then provides an example of a prototyping process for information architecture including an example from his recent work and shares his open-source toolkit for prototyping with content.
http://www.andyfitzgeraldconsulting.com/speaking/prototyping-ia/

Low-Fidelity vs. High-Fidelity Prototyping

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to prototyping. That’s also the reason why prototyping can be applied so flexibly in different stages of product development or to achieve different goals. One aspect to think about and get right when building a prototype is choosing the right fidelity, the right level of detail. In this post, Emily Esposito compares low-fidelity to high-fidelity prototyping and shares the differences and respective advantages of each strategy.
https://www.invisionapp.com/blog/low-fi-vs-hi-fi-prototyping/

Rapid Prototyping Process and Fidelity: A 10-Minute Guide for UI and UX Designers

And yet another piece about fidelity: Jerry Cao, content strategist at UXPin, explains in depth which factors can affect the right level of fidelity to build into a prototype, but also looks at different strategies of including prototyping in the design process, and ways to combine fidelity and functionality in prototypes.
https://www.uxpin.com/studio/blog/rapid-prototyping-process-fidelity-10-minute-guide-for-ui-ux-designers/

Courses and Events

Human-Centered Design 201: Prototyping, a course with IDEO.org

+ACUMEN offers a free prototyping course in cooperation with IDEO.org. You will learn methods that IDEO.org designers use to quickly build prototypes, learn best practices for testing those ideas in the field, and collecting real user feedback to iterate efficiently.
https://www.plusacumen.org/courses/prototyping

Framer Loupe Conference

Framer is hosting a conference at the EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam this September. You can expect interesting talks about design and prototyping and there will also be hands-on Framer workshops including advanced topics like prototyping with data or hardware.
https://framer.com/loupe

Tools

Adobe XD is now free (!)

What an unexpected move by Adobe. Adobe XD is now completely free in the new Starter Plan. Included are all design and prototyping capabilities and you can create an unlimited number of XD documents. The number of active, shared prototypes and design specs is limited to one each. The May release also introduces password protected design specs, the ability to swap symbols, paste elements to multiple artboards, and also brings improvements to the Sketch and Photoshop integrations.
https://theblog.adobe.com/may-2018-update-adobe-xd/

Marvel introduces a free API

This really is a big step for Marvel: They just announced their new, free API, built with GraphQL which enables developers to build their own Marvel integrations or apps.
https://blog.marvelapp.com/introducing-the-marvel-api/

Overflow now in free public beta

Overflow, a new user flow diagramming tool, is now publicly available for free. With Overflow, you can create, share, and present “a playable and interactive user flow diagram that allows zoom in and out to focus on the details or on the big picture”.
https://blog.overflow.io/announcing-overflow-public-beta-33fafc45d357

New Toolbox by Prototypr

Finding the right prototyping tool can be a challenge. Prototypr now makes it a little easier for you with their Toolbox which lets you compare design and prototyping tools by platform, features, and pricing.
http://prototypr.io/toolbox/

Lobe

Lobe is a new visual tool that lets you build custom deep learning models, quickly train them, and ship them directly in your app or website using the Lobe Developer API. Looks like more users will be able to prototype with AI very soon.
https://lobe.ai