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UX design tools and processes are definitely lagging behind right now. The annotated wireframe document created in Visio, InDesign, OmniGraffle, etc. is still t

by psweber 14y ago

UX design tools and processes are definitely lagging behind right now. The annotated wireframe document created in Visio, InDesign, OmniGraffle, etc. is still the norm. The closest thing we have to a solid prototyping tool is Axure (http://www.axure.com/ http://www.axure.com/), but creating anything beyond the equivalent of clickable JPGs is kludgy to say the least. Kids fresh out of HCI and interaction design school are close to useless, because they have no experience having their designs developed. Seeing them interact with (frustrated) seasoned developers can be very painful. UX designers should learn enough about programming to be dangerous for many reasons, but hand coding prototypes probably isn't ever going to be a scalable answer. I fantasize about working on a next gen UX prototyping tool all the time, but, to use the article's metaphor, I don't have a dance partner for that.

gercheq 14y ago
There are several UI prototype builders out there. Most of them are built on top of Twitter's Bootstrap. ie. http://jetstrap.com/ http://jetstrap.com/
timjaeger 14y ago
Look more people need to be coding and understand as much as possible about frameworks, databases, javascript, RoR, NodeJS, responsive design, dev time frames, Agile, etc. I am a UX Designer who can code (Rails, Javascript, CSS etc.) and it embarasses me when I talk to others that are just 'wireframe monkeys'. If you don't know HTML how can anyone trust your designs? I can only take so much - UX people need to step up and LEARN this stuff. If you don't you will just pave your own path to irrelevancy. If it were up to me there would be some other way to describe UX ppl that know tech and those that can merely hit something with the pretty stick and leave devs scratching their heads...
- psweber 14y ago
  I mostly agree with you. Many UX professionals I have worked with are almost proud about the fact that they don't have hands on experience with software development or visual design. They are the worst of both worlds. That being said, I don't think that a UX designer should spend the average day working on the nuts and bolts of development. A structural architect builds models and then collaborates with someone with more expertise who is in charge of the real building process. The comparison isn't perfect, but I think that as our industry matures, it will more closely resemble that. UX architects need a better modeling tool.

by psweber 14y ago

gercheq 14y ago

There are several UI prototype builders out there. Most of them are built on top of Twitter's Bootstrap. ie. http://jetstrap.com/ http://jetstrap.com/

timjaeger 14y ago

Look more people need to be coding and understand as much as possible about frameworks, databases, javascript, RoR, NodeJS, responsive design, dev time frames, Agile, etc. I am a UX Designer who can code (Rails, Javascript, CSS etc.) and it embarasses me when I talk to others that are just 'wireframe monkeys'. If you don't know HTML how can anyone trust your designs? I can only take so much - UX people need to step up and LEARN this stuff. If you don't you will just pave your own path to irrelevancy. If it were up to me there would be some other way to describe UX ppl that know tech and those that can merely hit something with the pretty stick and leave devs scratching their heads...

psweber 14y ago
I mostly agree with you. Many UX professionals I have worked with are almost proud about the fact that they don't have hands on experience with software development or visual design. They are the worst of both worlds. That being said, I don't think that a UX designer should spend the average day working on the nuts and bolts of development. A structural architect builds models and then collaborates with someone with more expertise who is in charge of the real building process. The comparison isn't perfect, but I think that as our industry matures, it will more closely resemble that. UX architects need a better modeling tool.