Ask HN: What prototyping tool do you suggest for non-technical users? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What prototyping tool do you suggest for non-technical users?

9 pointshysan17 comments

I'm looking for a prototyping tool for mobile apps that I can use with my two non-technical friends to iterate over design and layout ideas. None of us work in the same timezone and due to hardware/bandwidth limitations for one of them, the traditional pen & paper (+ scanning) approach isn't feasible. So I'm looking for an easy to learn tool that we can all use. What do you suggest? Also, any tips from people with similar experiences would be very much appreciated.

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The first step isn't design or layout, it's interaction. You should do many interaction-only prototypes with NO design and NO layout first. When you understand the core interaction flows, some good candidate layouts will be self evident, and you can iterate on the design.

The most valuable thing your early prototypes can tell you is which features you can get away with leaving out for V2. You probably only need three features that can be built with 100 lines of code. The problem it's it's extremely difficult to understand what those 100 lines are. Most companies spend millions before figuring it out, but you don't need more than pencil+paper to do it.

You really don't need CSS until after your first sale.

We're a bit past this. We do have candidate layouts in mind hence why I asked about design and layout. But I'll definitely suggest going back a step and seeing if we can further simplify everything. Thanks.

Pidoco (www.pidoco.com) is a great tool for mobile apps and collaboration at the same time. It's online based, so you can share your prototype and simultaneously work on it and with the Pidoco app, you can preview your prototypes on your mobile device. Also, it is very intuitive and doesn't require any technical knowledge but still offers a bunch of different interactions and stuff.

For me Pidoco is working best for the wireframing and low fidelity prototyping stage.

One UX design firm I know uses cheap document cameras (I believe IPEVO makes several inexpensive and portable models) so they do pen-and-paper prototyping during videoconferences without any need to scan things in. It's much more interactive to see someone drawing and talk to them as they're doing it, rather than only seeing scans of the finished product afterward.

Do they have access to Paint or a similar program? I used this as an online college student. I had no scanner and I had to submit drawings online as part of my class assignment. My husband was shocked at what I could accomplish. He called me a Paint Wizard.

Find some drawing program that is free and within their hardware constraints.

This was my first thought, but I was worried about it becoming unwieldy after a couple of iterations. What are your experiences with doing this in a team? Any tips on how to manage all of the back and forth?

I have not done this as part of a team. But I would think it is not critical for everyone to be using the exact same drawing. The drawings should be viewed as a tool for communicating. If different people are using different drawings, but it is facilitating communication, that second piece is the important piece.

At the mock up stage, I think the most important piece is hammering out effective communication protocols. Regardless of what tool you use, this will be a process. It sounds like you may be in different countries. If so, you may find that bridging the culture gap is harder than bridging the tech gap.

Good point. I was probably thinking too far ahead instead of focusing on the communication aspect. No worries about culture though since we're all American and even lived together for a while. We just happen to be spread across the world because of our jobs.

Adobe Experience Designer is great for this.

It allows you to rapidly wireframe UI / UX, and then prototype interaction flows by linking views together.

There's also PoP, which is an app for iOS, which allows you to do the same thing with photos you've taken on your phone.

Balsamiq has my vote.

Looks interesting and will take a look into it. I saw it mentioned alongside Pencil (http://pencil.evolus.vn) when searching for prototyping tools. Sort of reminds me of Visio. Would that be an apt comparison?

I like it for the sinplicity and ease of use. Interactions don't work super well but you can do a stream of screens. Easiest one to get into without having to learn a huge piece of software imo.

It has to be PowerPoint or Keynote!

Most people already know how to use them and you can create pretty realistic designs using them!

Or Google Slides - it has most of the benefits of PP or KN, but it's visible in realtime to anyone with a Google account (ok, everyone) while giving you notes and revision history.

This seems doable, though we might have to resort to LibreOffice instead. One of them is based in China so no Google products work without a VPN which isn't always very stable.

Invision App

https://www.invisionapp.com/

I recommend a sheet of paper and a pencil.

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