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How to Prototype an App in 1 hour: meet POP

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11–20 of 23 posts

Re: How to Prototype an App in 1 hour: meet POP

#12

At a glance, this is a very creative way to fuse the best of digital prototyping with the spontaneity of hand drawn prototyping. However I believe that digital linking and editing stages would be easier if it were on a browser than an iphone.

I use pop a lot and its actually really easy and intuitive. Just my opinion.

Re: How to Prototype an App in 1 hour: meet POP

#13
post #6

Most good software engineers could probably prototype faster with code either html or cocoa.

Really doubt it.

And the idea behind paper prototyping is to be able to discard without regret. Once you code, you can get attached to your first ideas and not iterate, or iterate over some arbitrary restriction set by the tools. Paper prototyping makes it easy to "kill your darlings" without regret.

More than that, the second and probably more important idea is to avoid the customer to get attached to an un-iterated design, and the "but it's almost done!" effect that can be devastating when negotiating times.

Re: How to Prototype an App in 1 hour: meet POP

#14
post #5
post #3

POP is great and I use it not only for hand-drawn sketches but also for wireframes and comps too. Especially for an iPhone app with clever uses of comps and transitions you can pretty much demo what the final app is going to look like before writing any code.

What such options are the for an Android? Do they generate skeleton code?

Android version is in private beta, should be ready this month.

Re: How to Prototype an App in 1 hour: meet POP

#15

At a glance, this is a very creative way to fuse the best of digital prototyping with the spontaneity of hand drawn prototyping. However I believe that digital linking and editing stages would be easier if it were on a browser than an iphone.

I use pop a lot and its actually really easy and intuitive. Just my opinion.

Can I use it on an iPad? For non phone app prototypes an iPhone screen seems rather small.

Re: How to Prototype an App in 1 hour: meet POP

#17
On being a maker: Most non-designer/non-technical business types I know can pretty competently use tools like Keynote or Basalmiq Mockups to slap screens and ideas together. I'm not sure that hand drawing sketches out would be any faster for them. And then if you're paying for UI stencils to draw...what's the point? Maybe it's nice to take a break from looking at a computer screen?

If learning Keynote or a tool like Basalmiq is too much of a learning curve, I'm not sure someone should even be working in the world of app design? I know non-technical people that downloaded some Keynote templates and were slapping together ideas in less than an hour after reading some quick tutorials.

Also, as far as mobile prototyping goes, I'm a strong believer of higher-fidelity mockups since screen real estate is such a premium.

Re: How to Prototype an App in 1 hour: meet POP

#18
post #10

1. > During workshops we don’t have time to learn people how to use software "teach" 2. The inventor of the PalmPilot used a prototype made of cardboard for months, to see if it was usable. He would bring it to meetings and "use" it to take notes like it was the real thing! Here's a pic of one of those prototypes in the Computer Museum in Palo Alto http://bambax.smugmug.com/Other/2012-10Californie/27080082_g...

Thx for the feedback and the inspiring example!

Re: How to Prototype an App in 1 hour: meet POP

#20
post #6

Most good software engineers could probably prototype faster with code either html or cocoa.

Really doubt it. And the idea behind paper prototyping is to be able to discard without regret. Once you code, you can get attached to your first ideas and not iterate, or iterate over some arbitrary restriction set by the tools. Paper prototyping makes it easy to "kill your darlings" without regret. More than that, the second and probably more important idea is to avoid the customer to get attached to an un-iterated…

I don't doubt it...at least not for desktop or web apps, which are the kind that I build most of the time.

Just this past Thursday, we found a new task that our call center would have to perform. I opened Visual Studio, created a new WinForms app and layed out the UI within 20 minutes. I emailed the screenshots to all the principles and got responses back within the hour.

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