Adobe Fireworks comes with a number of nice looking, visually polished user interface elements that can be used for prototyping and wireframing. In the lack of something more rough and sketchy, Dragnet has made a visually bare bones web library that you are free to download.

Links:

• Dragnet website wireframes kit 

Henrik Olsen - September 05, 2010 - via Wireframes Magazine

See also: Tools (105)  Prototyping and wireframing (117) 

What's the best layout for a blog front page? To show full articles or to show summaries of the latest post?

According to research done by Jakob Nielsen, using summaries works best with blogs that people don't visit every day. They are better at drawing readers in as they offer a broader selection of subjects and increases the likelihood that they will find something that interests them.

Links:

• Corporate Blogs: Front Page Structure 

Henrik Olsen - August 10, 2010

See also: Web page design (39)  Text (24)  Home pages (9)  Research (128) 

At his blog, Amir Khella has a thorough post on how to build interactive prototypes of iPad applications using Keynote. In the post Amir shares his Keynote iPad template for download.

Links:

• How to prototype interactive iPad applications in 30 minutes or less using apple keynote 

Henrik Olsen - July 30, 2010 - via Wireframes Magazine

See also: Prototyping and wireframing (117)  Tools (105) 

Apple's presentation making software, Keynote, is apparently becoming a popular design and prototyping tool. According to Luke Wroblewski, the reason why is that:

- It's efficient to work with
- It has fairly powerful drawing capabilities that allow you to design in high-fidelity
- It's great for showing process flows and interactions
- Its animation tools makes it easy to show how things like transitions and rich interactions might actually work

Links:

• Designing with Keynote 

Henrik Olsen - July 30, 2010

See also: Prototyping and wireframing (117)  Tools (105) 

Over at Smashing Magazine, Lyndon Cerejo has written a nice primer on prototyping. In the article, he outlines the prototyping process and discusses questions such as fidelity, deciding what to prototype, and how to select prototyping tools.

Links:

• Design Better And Faster With Rapid Prototyping 

Henrik Olsen - July 13, 2010

See also: Prototyping and wireframing (117)  Primers (14) 

Balsamiq is an electronic mockup tool to develop desktop applications, web applications, web sites, RIA and iPhone applications. It uses a library of hand-drawn controls (intentionaly) which you can extend with your own.

There are multiple ways to share the wireframes (PNG, interlinked PDF pages, online versions,...) and to gather feedback. It is designed for collaboration, in face-to-face or online meetings.

"Put that pencil down - Using Balsamiq Mockups feels like you are drawing, but it's digital, so you can tweak and rearrange controls easily, and the end result is much cleaner. Teams can come up with a design and iterate over it in real-time in the course of a meeting."

Links:

• Balsamiq Mockups: Product Tour & Features 
• Balsamiq Mockups: Online demo 
• Balsamiq Homepage 

Pieter-Jan Pruuost - June 28, 2010

See also: Tools (105)  Web page design (39)  Prototyping and wireframing (117) 

Keynote is Travis Isaacs' favorite wireframing tool. "It's ridiculously easy to use, creates gorgeous presentations, and features full suite of drawing tools and shapes."

At keynotekungfu.com you can buy Travis' Keynot Wireframe Kit and watch his presentation on how to deliver effective wireframes to your clients.

Links:

• Keynote Wireframe Kit 

Henrik Olsen - June 15, 2010

See also: Prototyping and wireframing (117)  Tools (105) 

For 9.99$ you can get yourself a pretty cool prototyping tool for the iPhone called Interface.

The tool is itself an iPhone App that you can use to build interactive prototypes of your own apps.

Take a look at the video tour the see how it works.

Links:

• Interface - the ultimate mockup & prototyping tool for iPhone 

Henrik Olsen - May 24, 2010

See also: Tools (105)  Prototyping and wireframing (117) 

Jakob Nielsen has conducted a preliminary usability study of the Apple iPad. His findings "revived memories of Web designs from 1993":

- Because of the apps' print media aesthetic users don't know where they can click, which options exist and trigger unexpected actions by mistake

- Common actions are difficult to learn since each application has a completely different way of doing similar things

- The user interface suffers from being a scaled-up iPhone. For example, people tend to ignore or forget about the tab bar at the bottom of the screen

- People want more freedom and control than swiping for the next page when reading

- Screen elements tend to be too small for people to be able to touch them

Links:

• iPad Usability: First Findings From User Testing 
• Free report: Usability of iPad Apps and Websites 

Henrik Olsen - May 11, 2010

See also: Research (128) 

In a guest post on the Google Docs Blog, Morten Just tells about his wireframing template for Google Docs and explains how to use them for making your own wireframes.

Links:

• Rapid wireframe sketching in Google Docs 

Henrik Olsen - May 11, 2010

See also: Tools (105)  Prototyping and wireframing (117)