Prototyping With Sketchflow

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This is the typical flow of how designers and agencies work with customers. Customers brief agencies. Agencies translate a combination of explicit and implicit requirements and present the idea back to the customer. If the idea is properly understood by both parties then the designers start work on the concept.Current modes of communicating projects:Static imagesPDFsPowerpointsVisio diagramsPaper or digital SketchesNone of these faithfully represent the final product or user experience. The end result of this is that concept phase is exited prematurely and development/delivery begins. Changes to the concept iterate development often times breaking mature aspects of the project delivery. The fundamental question is, “why do people leave concept phase so early?”

It is because the concept phase is a nightmare!Feedback – Customers who aren’t “design-centric” do not give you actionable feedback. They remain focused on the details like color, images, rather than “look ‘n feel” and designComplex idea – Customers are unable to communicate complex ideas and in turn, it is hard for designers to fully capture what they want. On the flip side, designers presenting static images, sketches, and portfolios do not fully convey their intentions to the customer. Even after multiple iterations, customers and designers are still “guessing” what each other wants. Sketchflow creates live web applications via Silverlight so that customers can view and interact with concepts and ideasChanges – Because designers and customers could never finalize a concept 100%, development would often begin with a set of unknown ideas and concepts with the hopes that “minor” changes would be accounted for. Sometimes changes that may seem minor in design are big architecturally and can frustrate the web developers and at worse break parts of the existing project. This equates to lost time and money. Sketchflow is completely .NET and XAML (XML) based so any changes that a designer makes within Expression Blend 3 are updated and passed on to Visual Studio to the developer. Because designers and developer work inside the same project, teams face less friction and are more accommodating of complex changes.Customer Focus – the lack of quality feedback mechanisms, the extensive use of complex design concepts, and the iterative design process lead to a nightmare scenario where customers do not focus on the questions you need answered and leads your own frustration. Words cannot express what you may go through but I imagine it may feel something like the next slide.

You feel like this when dealing with “unenlightened” customers

Auto generation of project manager documentation with TOC and high-res images showing each page of the application as well as state.

Notice the sitemap/application map. Blue indicate pages/states and the green represents common “components” like navigation that pages inherit.

Sitemap and feedback boxes populated by end-user feedback via the Feedback player

A sample of the available “sketchy” parts for craft digital application sketches

Cross-platform/cross-browser Silverlight application where clients can annotate aspects of the project using a mouse or tablet PC. You can pencil, marker, highlight, and comment any aspect and version of the project.

This is a screenshot of an actual paper sketch that was scanned into Sketchflow and made interactive. The wheel actually rotates when the mouse-wheel moves. Try to explain the “look ‘n feel” on paper with this! (its REALLY HARD!)

Add BehaviorsChanges Propagate to development environmentEx. Login Successful / Login FailedNames, addresses, numbers, prices

Even if you don’t use Silverlight, you should try it purely for conceptualization and design. To bring in a digital film production analogy, use Silverlight and Sketchflow as your “intermediate” copy/build.* - Linux support will come when the open-source implementation of Silverlight, known as Moonlight, gains feature parity with Silverlight 3.

Sketchflow starter kit is AWESOME! 12 videos (WMV), scripts, and raw assets.

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Prototyping With Sketchflow - Presentation Transcript

Rapid Application Prototyping with SketchFlowViral Tarpara – Technical Evangelist - Microsoft
Utopian Workflow
Dev-Fat Agencies
How Agencies REALLY Work
Concept
This Leads to...
#FAIL
Why Concept Phase is a Nightmare
Feedback
Customerswho aren’t “design-centric” do not give you actionable feedback. They remain focused on the details like colorandimages, rather than “look ‘n feel” and design
You end up wanting
to do this…
So Why ?
05/11/2009
Rapidly Model the Look and Feel
05/11/2009
Enterprise-Ready Applications
05/11/2009
Multi-Version/User Feedback
Automatically Generate Documentation
Sketchflow
Interface
Feedback Player in Browser
Full Interaction and Commenting
This Paper Sketch Actually Rotates
Try to Explain this on Paper!
05/11/2009
Demonstration
Sketchflow Tasks
Import Adobe files into Full Functioning UIs
Application Navigation System with NO CODE
Add State to the application
Drag and Drop usable Sample Data
05/11/2009
“We Don’t Use Silverlight”
“We Don’t Use Silverlight”
HTML/Flash Shops Fast Prototyping
Conceptualize in Silverlight/WPF
Finalize Changes before Development
Multi-user / Multi-version Feedback
Firefox, IE, Safari Support on PC/MAC/Linux*
Getting Started with Sketchflow
Download Silverlight 3
Download Microsoft Expression Blend 3 trial
Checkout Sketchflow Starter Kit
Videos
Guides
Assets
Contact Me : viralta@microsoft.com
Blog: http://blogs.technet.net/tarpara
TwitterID: @TARPARA
05/11/2009
If after all this you remain
unconvinced then...
“I find your lack
of faith disturbing”