Situation with Prototyping

UX/UI, wireframe + mockup specialist required

This above is a very popular job entry you will see on any freelancer website when you browse the design interface category. Almost every client requires a designer to analyze user interaction with a website, or application, and to then create a good looking interface. It is strange that so many people think that user-experience specialists are very similar to the typical graphic designer, who are really only responsible for developing eye-catching, pleasant mock-ups. In fact, UX specialists are much like business analysts, with their main focus on solving end-user tasks.

Do you ever need to hire business analyst, one who also needs to be a great high-fidelity Photoshop mockup professional? Or, alternatively, a graphic designer with business analyst skills?

And why do so many people want to hire a single multi-specialist to complete both UX and mockup design tasks? The reason is simple — many people like to merge closely related specialities. Are you a programmer or hardware engineer? If you are, you are definitely capable of repairing my printer and IPhone. Are you a doctor? You may be an otolaryngologist, but I am sure you could still advise me how to solve my dental problems. If you are an agricultural specialist, I’m sure you could advise which cactuses thrive in my home. And so on.

The point is that any of the above-mentioned professionals are closer to each other in their related fields than any layman, and they would be able to give you qualified help in some simple cases. But if you need a really professional solution, nothing will ever beat one developed by a narrowly focused specialist.

Breaking the logic sequence of a prototyping process is the second strange process that is going on. I can’t understand the Invision preference shown by many website customers. Yes, it is a handy solution when you already have the necessary graphics, or, for example, you don’t want to invest your time and money on UX analysis, or you have such a simple website that you don’t need any analysis. But it makes me wonder, when I see a specification for a complex web application that has to be developed from scratch, and has a prototyping requirement for Invision.

Earlier we saw a correct designing process, pen-sketching first, then wireframing, prototyping, testing, and mocking-up. This is simplified now to just mocking-up and prototyping. It may seem similar but is fundamentally different in nature. You shouldn’t focus on pixel-perfect design while prototyping, it distracts you from concentration on end-user task solving. And you shouldn’t be analyzing, for example, button color, logo, banner photo etc., at this stage.

An Invision prototype is something like Powerpoint in that you can’t make a real prototype for anything more complex than simple screen navigation. How would you prototype mega menu navigation with something like Invision? For example, this sample. Need I mention that navigation is one of the main features of any website? If a user is unable to understand the structure of your site, they will be confused and probably feel misled. And you are likely to lose this user forever.

Yes, you can build your site in Invision by creating 20 screens in Photoshop first and then linking them in Invision. But is this really a twenty-first century way of constructing prototypes? What if you subsequently need to make a modification by moving screen controls to different places? You will need to create another 20 new screens and link them all again. And this would be the case for every modification you make. That way of making prototypes was possible in the first version of Axure in 2002.

The second possible way of creating Invision prototypes is to simplify everything, allowing you to do couple of Photoshop mock-ups. If you need to modify anything, all you have to do is modify your PS files and recreate your prototype. However, here we have a bigger problem — your prototype will be different from your real-life website. You will have a two level menu, when you need three or four levels. And then your users will start to suffer from bad navigation.

People like simplicity, this is one of the base principles of any UX design, and is why Invision gained popularity, despite it reversing the prototyping process, moving, now, from final design to interactive prototype. We need something as strong as Axure and simple as Balsamiq to take website owners back to the correct prototyping process. Unfortunately, we are not seeing anything revolutionary and new emerging in this field in the near future — but, then again, who knows.

Summarizing, I stress again that you should find and use a UX specialist at the first stage of creation of any medium and/or high complex websites. Don’t simply follow any tool or trend just because it is popular. And make real-life interactive prototypes using the right tools, for example, Axure.