Prototyping: A Component for Success by Chris Griffith

I can't speak highly enough of the Designer Developer Workflow conference, aka "D2W"! Having been using Coldfusion for a long time now, I find more often than not that I glean maybe 10% new knowledge and information from the other conferences I attend. This one, however, has skillfully addressed a niche that I haven't previously been educated on in such a focused, concise manner: The "divide" between development and design.

Let me start this review by saying that Chris Griffith is an outstanding speaker, engaging his audience and enlightening them with well organized material.

In this particular session, Chris addressed, at a high level, the values of and approaches to prototyping, or building out representations of an application before it is actually created. Because Chris works for a company that has a global presence, with both time and language barriers present, prototyping is a vital part of his company's workflow. Whether it's just a quick mockup using Fireworks (a "Fidelity A" level prototype), a basic simulation built in html and with hard coded values (a "Fidelity B" level prototype), or a larger scale, "ready for user testing" type prototype fleshed out with data and working script ("Fidelity C" level), it is Chris' experience that some kind of mockup is essential in order to solidify the vision between stakeholders, designers, and developers. In fact, Chris says that more often than not the prototype should be used during user testing, before resources have been dedicated to building the actual application.

One guideline that Chris offered is to always think of your prototypes as completely expendable and to not invest so much effort and time in them that you couldn't just throw them away and start from scratch. He also,in the interest of project timelines, personally doesn't focus so much on creating re-usable assets in his prototypes, but builds out only what is needed in as short a time as possible. As Chris says, building a prototype should never be allowed to become a monumental task.

Chris uses a variety of Adobe and non-Adobe tools in his prototyping efforts. Whether it's Fireworks, Flash Builder, Coldfusion, HTML, Javascript, or any combination thereof, his philosophy of "use whatever tool makes the most sense for the project at hand" is a wise one indeed.

To sum it all up, Chris admonishes us all to be aware that "the only cost in software development is CHANGE". And, because a picture IS worth a thousand words, smart prototyping is an absolutely essential part of any efficient workflow.

Thanks Chris! I look forward to hearing you speak again soon!