Paper Prototyping vs. Balsamiq Mockups
Our process of designing mockups directly influences the quality of our finished design. Great design isn’t just in pixels and colors, it is also in the interaction design. We can’t design graphically until we have designed and tested wireframes.
Paper Prototyping with Paper and Marker
My design tools are primitive. They include a stack of paper, a Sharpie marker, and a wastebasket. Sketching wireframes on paper is very fast. It takes only a few seconds, and the result is always disposable. Drawing and trashing concepts is the interaction designers way of brainstorming for ideas.
Usability Review: OldNavy.com
There are only a few examples of top-notch ecommerce websites, but Old Navy.com hits the nail on the head. Here are a few of the key elements that separate them from the rest of the pack.
Cross-Site Header Bar
It is clear that OldNavy is only one of 4 websites operated by The Gap. They promote cross selling between the sites by offering a simple centralized checkout for all 4 stores.
I really dig the reversed tab effect which shows which site you are currently on. Each of the 4 sites has its own background which makes it easily distinguishable.
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Latest Comments
- vick → “ Great tutorial…”
- Tess Elliott → “ Am an MFA trained artist who is learning to do more work in the commercial world and my style uses a lot of old images for an old look. A quick flip through some of my Dover Clip Art books is always an idea generator. I design a lot for kids and they love the…”
- BenWoz → “ Love the dot paper! None of those "lines" getting in the way of my mental images.…”
- Robert → “ I have to agree with the design of the site being great. I am more interested in how the website got ranked so high and some keywords land first page in searches when the page it lands on has no page rank.…”
- Etienne Segonzac → “ Hello everyone ! I would love to have a chat with other Pomodoro users (and the mailing list is quite slow). The thing is for me the main takeaways of the technique are the rhythm + the motivation of visualizing my progress. BTW, the Navel Labs app is quite gorgeous (and the compliment is coming from a concurrent…”



