a baseline of understanding. In the room we'll have a designer, a front end dev, back end dev, project, and product (me) people plus possibly a client or two. At the idea stage you have words in the air. The problem with words in the air is that everyone attaches their own picture of what those words look like. The sketch, especially if it's viewable by everyone, grounds the discussion and immediately reveals gaps in reality or gaps between everyone's interpretation of the concept. It helps me a great deal personally, since I'm not a developer, I can go down trails that are more based on "computer magic" than the actual capability of the tech. A sketch allows developers to course correct me. In short, the tangibility of sketches gets the group more quickly and accurately to the thing. Sketching provides a baseline of understanding. #speed #accuracy #structured #fuzzy #attitude #transparent Nov 2011
white boards and paper to make sure that I'm on the same page with people about planned interactions or interfaces. I also like to print out interfaces we've already designed and then cover parts of them with post-its and draw what should be there instead. As you can see, the visual design for Google Search isn't too complex, so I can move pretty quickly from a sketch to a relatively high-fidelity mock. In other cases I might 'sketch' with snagit or photoshop (really rough work) and then an engineer will make a working prototype based on that rough. For my current project I'm in a room with the entire team, so my sketches and mocks are up on the walls and we can all stand up and look at the board and discuss the flow of the interface and the interactions that take place. It's nice because standing up is informal, but it is also important that when you present sketches you have a recorder who can get all of the feedback for the meeting. Abi Jones Designer at Google I should note that not everyone at Google is a sketcher. I'm just not very fast with Photoshop, so I like to draw things first. #speed #accuracy #structured #fuzzy #attitude #transparent Nov 2011
everyone found common ground and made the project workable. We created a small, immersive educational game to educate students interested in aspects of successful deer hunting. The initial concept fit into a single sketch. More sketches were made, those turned to wireframes, wireframes and documentation informed the illustrator, content and game design. As for the team, each person worked remote, with limited availability, and sketching was the keystone in communicating. Sketching served as balance between a verbose and academic education designer, prone to 3500- word emails, and a programmer, prone to single-line emails. The game design started with a single sketch. #speed #accuracy #structured #fuzzy #attitude #transparent Nov 2011 http://www.hunter-ed.com/ Shoot or Don’t Shoot
are more capable make prototypes, not promises make designs, not documents collaborate, don’t litigate partner, don’t just provide make contacts, not contracts make friends, not war