ideas for a thing which we’re designing. Something: a lower fidelity representation, could be a paper sketch, wireframe-like clickable prototype, fully interactive implementation. A thing: something we’re designing. A website, web app, native app, system, or process.
quality: level of complexity; breadth and/or depth being presented; richness of interactions. Easy to conflate fidelity with complexity and speed of prototyping. They don’t always correlate. Many tools operate across a range of fidelities.
of prototype creation, and complexity sometimes correlate, sometimes don’t. Different tools suit different designers and teams. Some tools are quicker to get going with if you’re already creating design deliverables of some kind (e.g. sketches, mockups in Sketch or Photoshop).
iterating. Anyone can get involved. Quickly becomes impractical to prototype and and test a large site. Not easy to share and present prototypes. Paper prototyping
turn them into clickable prototypes quickly and easily. Clickable prototypes can be created with existing PDFs editing tools. Tools like InVision and Marvel bring a wide range of features specifically to aid prototyping workflow. Clickable prototypes from designs
range of design and development experience. From Keynote / Powerpoint through to Axure and Adobe XD. Some tools can be used to prototype larger sites; with real data and content; and complex interactions. A wide range of fidelities available across the various tools. Tools for drawing and creating prototypes
breadth / depth of a full site structure. Can prototype interactions to whatever depth you wish. A wide range of frameworks and tools. With hosting sorted, sharing is ‘easy’. Learning curve, or work with developers! HTML prototypes
get bought, new tools arriving all the time. Think about tools in terms of our categories (and maybe your own too). Then as tools come and go, you can get a feel for which ones will be useful to you. Other prototyping tools
bouncingdan
matthewcrist
lynnandtonic
eileencodes
chriscoyier
hatefulcrawdad
tammyeverts
destraynor
thoeni
rocio
ddemaree
lauravandoore
addyosmani
