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Show HN: TinyUX – Grid based low-fi wireframing on your mobile phone

tinyux.app

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Re: Show HN: TinyUX – Grid based low-fi wireframing on your mobile phone

#21

Post by juliushuijnk »

juliushuijnk wrote: post #19
specialist wrote: post #18

This is just terrific. -- Old man shouting at clouds... I learned how to do low-fidelity paper prototyping from Luke Hohmann at OOPSLA 1998 in Vancouver. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2017112.Oopsla_98 Just like this: "Lo-fi Paper Prototype Example" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRlcZJpl0dw I can't quickly find Luke's paper online. IIRC, this book is pretty terrific: "Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way…

Yes, the plan is to let it import pictures of paper prototypes, use a neural net to interpret it and translate it to ux-source code. Then you can manipulate it and output it to other tools & platforms. Did some early experiments a while back, and have quite some time in December, so hope to make some progress to this end. Tweets about the Neural Net experiments: - https://twitter.com/Juliu/status/1548691577677152257…

Perhaps a Large Language Model (LLM) can translate my .ux source code to all the different platforms for me.. So many ideas, so little time!

Re: Show HN: TinyUX – Grid based low-fi wireframing on your mobile phone

#22

Post by rchaud »

I like the idea, reminds me of OmniGraffle from many years ago, mixed in with a bit of Excalidraw?

Thanks for making an Android app, the platform is lacking in design tools in general. And props to you for making it a flat fee instead of the freemium-to-subscription pipeline that most other app businesses feel compelled to do.

Re: Show HN: TinyUX – Grid based low-fi wireframing on your mobile phone

#23

Post by rchaud »

juliushuijnk wrote: post #17
brainchild-adam wrote: post #13

Nice! Thank you for sharing. It's probably not something you'd want to prioritize, and you mentioned releasing it quickly influenced some of your decisions. But a way to pay outside of the PlayStore would be nice for those of us who chose to or cannot use it for payment.

Hi, I'm open to suggestions on how. On an alternative store or something like that? Google wont allow distribution via Google Play, and payment via third party I think.

Do the Play Store rules allow you to post an APK with a license key on Gumroad or Shopify or some other provider?

Re: Show HN: TinyUX – Grid based low-fi wireframing on your mobile phone

#24

Post by juliushuijnk »

rchaud wrote: post #22

I like the idea, reminds me of OmniGraffle from many years ago, mixed in with a bit of Excalidraw? Thanks for making an Android app, the platform is lacking in design tools in general. And props to you for making it a flat fee instead of the freemium-to-subscription pipeline that most other app businesses feel compelled to do.

Thanks!

Gives me the opportunity to mention that the app does not will NEVER have ads. There will also always be a single-purchase version. The whole purpose of the tool is to help people create and be innovative. Being pushed ads in your face is the opposite.

Although I do think the freemium-to-subscription also makes sense here. A free 'crippled' version to make it easier for people to taste before they buy.

And for online features (currently the app is fully offline) I would need some sort of subscription to cover server costs.

Re: Show HN: TinyUX – Grid based low-fi wireframing on your mobile phone

#25

Post by juliushuijnk »

rchaud wrote: post #22

I like the idea, reminds me of OmniGraffle from many years ago, mixed in with a bit of Excalidraw? Thanks for making an Android app, the platform is lacking in design tools in general. And props to you for making it a flat fee instead of the freemium-to-subscription pipeline that most other app businesses feel compelled to do.

Also thanks for the link to Excalidraw, didn't know that site.

Re: Show HN: TinyUX – Grid based low-fi wireframing on your mobile phone

#27

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

juliushuijnk wrote: post #6
devmor wrote: post #5

Oh hey, this is actually nice and fills a niche that I can use - on-the-fly layout prototyping with clients. If it was available on iPad, I'd pay $5 for it personally, $10 if it could export UML or some kind of XML definition.

Hi, planning to do iOS release next year. It's built in React Native, so should be easy in theory, only thing is that don't have a have personal OSX laptop (required for publishing) nor Apple developer account at the moment. Your not the first to ask for it, so I guess I'll have to figure it out. > $10 if it could export UML or some kind of XML definition Interesting. One of the features I plan to work on this week i…

> that don't have a have personal OSX laptop (required for publishing) nor Apple developer account at the moment.

So you don't need a developer account for development. If you use the same icloud account that's on the phone (I use an iPhone SE original edition), you can login to XCode and deploy your app to your phone for 7 days I believe. Great for development.

You're SOL on the Macbook though, ask around, maybe you have a buddy that can loan you one (or get a cheapo used macbook air with a busted display or something)

Re: Show HN: TinyUX – Grid based low-fi wireframing on your mobile phone

#28

Post by juliushuijnk »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #26

Is wireframing newspeak for creating a user interface?

Good excuse for me to explain what the app is all about.

In user experience design (UXD or UX design) or interaction design, or however you like to call it, the user interface (UI) is the whole thing that the user interfaces with. Developed and with the final design. A wireframe is a step towards that user interface.

Low-fi, meaning low fidelity, meaning with low details to just focus on the big picture stuff, helps to define what the user interface needs to do.

It's called a wire-frame, since the lines can be seen as wires, and it's all mostly lines & icons. The idea is that you don't want to get feedback on design details at this stage in the process.

Usually such a wireframe is shared with the team (devs, designers, product owner, etc) who give feedback and this process iterates a couple of times. Often adding more detail with each iteration.

Quite often a low-fi wireframe is enough for the team to get going. If there is a website with design, the front-end developer knows what to do, keeping the visual designer and the UX designer in the loop. This is the use-case TinyUX aims to help out.

For larger, more complex UI, like banking software, you probably also need hi-fi wireframes, clickable prototypes, etc. Here tools like Invision, Figma, Axure are often used.

All these hi-fi tools lack a low-fi mobile app. And the UI of these apps would be too complex, because they would find it hard not to put all their neat hi-fi features inside. Since they have good UX designers they'd rather not do that, and decide to make their app only be a viewer of wireframes and prototypes, with feedback stuff.

This gives me the chance to enter the market in a low-fi niche that I hope to expand from :).

Re: Show HN: TinyUX – Grid based low-fi wireframing on your mobile phone

#29

Post by juliushuijnk »

rchaud wrote: post #23
juliushuijnk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I'm open to suggestions on how. On an alternative store or something like that? Google wont allow distribution via Google Play, and payment via third party I think.

Do the Play Store rules allow you to post an APK with a license key on Gumroad or Shopify or some other provider?

I'd have to look into it. But presumably it should be possible.

Re: Show HN: TinyUX – Grid based low-fi wireframing on your mobile phone

#30

Post by CyberDildonics »

juliushuijnk wrote: post #28
CyberDildonics wrote: post #26

Is wireframing newspeak for creating a user interface?

Good excuse for me to explain what the app is all about. In user experience design (UXD or UX design) or interaction design, or however you like to call it, the user interface (UI) is the whole thing that the user interfaces with. Developed and with the final design. A wireframe is a step towards that user interface. Low-fi, meaning low fidelity, meaning with low details to just focus on the big picture stuff, helps…

Why wouldn't someone just position buttons in photoshop or some image editor? Or just layout the actual program and take a screenshot? It doesn't really take much time to declare a user interface.
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