UX Australia 2015

Half day workshop. Wednesday 26 August 2015, afternoon

Description

UX designers have been using wireframes for many years. From its metaphoric origins in filmmaking to its pinnacle in countless UX books, wireframing has been a key approach in defining both structure & interaction. In recent years, however, wireframing has come under attack. UX thinkers propose replacing wireframes with sketches and prototypes; yet there is still a need to understand the connection between idea and specification.

In this workshop, we’ll start by looking at where wireframes originated, how we can use sketching to understand direction, and where prototyping helps communicate structure, purpose, and approach more effectively.

We’ll then look at how you can use prototyping to evolve a product and to solve design problems. I’ll explain how throwaway prototypes are often a better design tool than any other method.

Of course, we’ll also get hands-on and make prototypes using both paper and digital prototyping.

What you’ll learn

In this workshop you will learn:

• The benefits of prototyping, both throwaway and evolutionary
• How to approach different methods and tools
• When to use different prototype approaches
• How interactive prototypes help solve design problems as well as communicate design intent

Workshop structure

This workshop combines principles, paper prototyping and digital prototyping, with discussion and questions.

Target audience

You’ll benefit from this workshop if you are fairly new to UX, new to prototyping or transitioning to UX from something like business analysis or graphic design. This workshop is also great for product managers.

It’s also great if your work seems to be stuck in endless wireframing or specification writing!

What to bring

As there is a practical aspect to the workshop, you’ll need to bring a laptop. We’ll let you know about what software you’ll need, but you won’t need to buy anything (we’ll arrange a free version of a popular tool).

What you’ll take away

Handout of principles of prototyping