The ancients said: "If a worker wants to do a good job, he must first sharpen his tools." Choosing a good prototyping tool can help you do more with less. Speaking of which, some people will definitely ask, do you have to design a prototype first to make a product? Can we develop the product we want without prototyping? Can't we just let the front-end development run the code directly?
For the above questions, my answer to you is that you cannot make a good product without prototyping. However, if there is a prototype design, the communication between the product manager and the development will be more convenient, and it will save you a lot of unnecessary trouble in the future.
If you are a mobile or web designer with working experience, I believe the importance of prototyping is self-evident. Prototyping can quickly and concretely present the product concepts and ideas in the minds of designers, product managers, and developers. For every team member involved in this project, it can be easily viewed, used and given some reasonable suggestions and feedback. Moreover, we can easily make necessary adjustments before determining the final product.
After we have completed interactive prototypes, we can usability test these prototype interfaces . Let's see if it gives us the expected product. An interactive prototype will give us huge benefits.
First, save time and reduce costs for enterprises. When a company wants to launch a new app or web page, the prototype can effectively help team members communicate efficiently, which can save time to optimize the product and reduce unnecessary overhead costs.
Alt: save time and cost
Second, make development easier. After testing the prototype interface, developers can quickly come up with a more complete code solution. In this way, it will become handy for later product maintenance.
Alt: Easier development
Third, more efficient teamwork and communication feedback. Now many prototyping tools are ready to prototype, we can directly send a link to our team members or customers. Team members or clients can add comments directly to it. This way communication is faster and revisions are faster.
Alt: Teamwork
Given the above, you must be familiar with the importance of prototyping. Of course, the importance of prototypes is not only that, so I won't go into details here. Prototyping tools are essential to quickly make interactive prototypes, which will be introduced in detail later. So, in 2018, which prototyping tool has captured my heart so much that I recommend it here?
What I recommend to you today is a software called Mockplus , which is a real domestic prototyping tool. The interface is simple and the operation is fast and convenient. It is also the most eye-catching prototyping software I have used so far.
Highlight features:
New Table Component: Tables are a common component in web backend design. The table of Mockplus can add, edit, delete, merge/split cells very conveniently. You can arbitrarily set the style and text style of one or more cells. When it comes to prototyping tools, it's definitely way ahead.
Page flow chart: After you have designed the prototype diagram, you can export the flow chart with one click. Help you easily determine the connection between pages.
Alt: Page Flowchart
Brain map editor: Use the "brain map mode" to quickly reflect design ideas and project structure.
Alt: brain map
Quick Grid: Quickly copy page elements, flexibly modify the attributes of all the same elements, help us process page elements in batches, and greatly reduce work time.
Sketch document import: Supports exporting Sketch documents as mp files, which can be directly opened and designed in Mockplus after exporting.
Team collaboration and management: Support multi-member collaboration to complete a project. Add or delete team members, set different roles for members, and set viewing and editing permissions for projects. It greatly facilitates the management and collaborative design of the enterprise team.
Alt: Team Management
Well, I will not explain the other functions one by one, because there are too many. At this point, some people may ask questions again, don't many other prototyping tools have similar functions? Why do you love this one?
The main reason can be summed up in one word: "fast". Now is an era of rapid development, and there are fierce competitors in every industry and field. This is especially true for products. When you are still worried about how to achieve this effect, perhaps our competitors have iterated the corresponding products several times. So, do you still want to have a place in this market? There is no evidence, no nonsense, 2 examples will take you to appreciate the "fastness" of Ike.
Make a cool countdown effect in 3 minutes
Let's look at the effect first.
Alt: countdown effect
Analysis of design steps
1) Drag out the circle component, set the text, background color and remove the border.
2) Copy 4 identical components and enter the corresponding numbers (the last one is blank).
3) The 5 components set the interaction for themselves respectively, select the trigger mode as "loading", and the effect is show/hide.
4) Set the delay time respectively.
The operation tutorial is as follows:
Alt: countdown design
Make a marquee effect in 2 minutes
Let's look at the effect first.
Alt: Marquee effect
Analysis of design steps
1) Drag out the panel component, put the text component inside it, and enter the content that needs to be scrolled.
2) Drag out the button component, interact with the text, select the trigger method, and the effect is "move".
3) Set the moving distance and execution time respectively.
The operation tutorial is as follows:
Alt: Marquee Design
Do you feel excited after watching it? Have you ever wanted to try it out? There are many prototyping tools on the market, but I believe that Mockplus will help you do more with less, download and try it now!