Upload
akhella
View
72
Download
3
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
How to prototype Windows Phone 7 apps with PowerPoint
Why PowerPoint?It contains a useful set of design features, making it ideal to create wireframes and clickable
prototypes for a variety of applica9ons quickly and cheaply. These features include basic shapes, visual styles, effects, grouping, slide masters, and hyperlinks.
Here is the process I used to prototype an image sharing app for win 7 phone with PowerPoint in under an hour.
Plan itOne of the simplest ways to plan an interface is to visualize it as a user flow diagram with links between states corresponding to user interac9on. For example, here is the flow diagram for the image sharing app (created using Windows Journal on a Tablet PC)
Sketch itThe next step is to create rough sketches for each screen. These sketches provide the high level direc9on for crea9ng the wireframes in PowerPoint, so don't worry about puMng too much detail there.
Wireframe itTo wireframe the interface with PowerPoint, simply select a shape from the insert tab, and draw the main screens first. Then duplicate (CTRL+D) slides to create different states for each screen, based on your user flow diagram.
To build these screens faster, I use the PowerPoint prototyping library from Keynotopia.
Hyperlink itNow the best part: To make your wireframe clickable, simply select a shape on your slide, click the hyperlink icon from the insert tab, and select the next slide in the user flow. That way, you're crea9ng a non-‐linear flow that simulates user interac9on with interface objects to navigate to other screens.
Export itPowerPoint provides a wide range of export formats, including PDF. The reason is I like PDF is that it can be easily shared and tested on different devices and plaXorms. If you already have a Windows 7 phone, open the PDF file and tap through it on your device as if it were a real prototype. All this is done without wri9ng a single line of code, or using any design tool.
That’s it! Enjoy prototyping with Keynote, and leave a comment below if you have any ques9ons or if you’d like to share your favorite Windows Phone 7 prototyping tools and tricks.
Final Tips-‐ Grouping shapes together (CTRL+G) makes it easier to copy/move them around.
-‐ Use slide masters to share basic screens and naviga9on items across mul9ple slides. That way, you avoid lots of copy/paste, and you can update mul9ple slides with a single shape.
-‐ Duplicate formaMng (style) of a shape or text by copying it (CTRL+SHIFT+C) and pas9ng it onto the new object (CTRL+SHIFT+V)
-‐ Create (or use an exis9ng ) interface library to save yourself 9me by copying and pas9ng interface elements rather than redrawing them every 9me.
-‐ Keep your prototype simple, and focus on the main features that you’d like to visualize and test. Everything else is a distrac9on.