Functional User Interface Prototypes

Nov 12

UX Camp Vienna 2011 presentation of FUIP

FUIP (Functional User Interface Prototypes) on Prezi

FUIP demo application, presented at UX Camp Vienna 2011 -

Demo application for Android devices with a screen configuration WVGA800* (480x800).

Sep 24

The FUIP Rapid Prototyping Workflow depicts this iterative approach to user interface design of mobile applications intended for the Android platform. The workflow can be broken into 4 underlying stages: The design phase which involves creation of sketches, mockups, wireframes etc. that represent the intended design The specification phase where the data models are defined through the specification of connections, controls and interactions The deployment phase which involves copying of the data models onto the SD card of the target mobile device, loading and automatic conversion into functional prototypes through the application FUIP The review phase where the stakeholders get involved in order to experience and evaluate the product, thus providing feedback for further refinements

The FUIP Rapid Prototyping Workflow depicts this iterative approach to user interface design of mobile applications intended for the Android platform. The workflow can be broken into 4 underlying stages:

Aug 18

Flowella + Android

FUIP’s data models are based on the XML specification of projects created with Flowella version 1.0. Due to the differences of the intended mobile platforms, not all specification options available in Flowella are applicable to the Android platform. Likewise, Flowella does not support Android-specific features.

FUIP makes use of the following controls to define the flow between the views:

 Hotspots
- Click
- Longpress
- Touch up
- Touch down
Motion actions
- Flip right
- Flip left
- Point up
- Point down
Timer

Data models as a rapid prototyping method for modeling the mobile user experience

While a lot has been done recently in terms of simplifying and speeding up the design and construction of graphical representations of user interfaces of the desired mobile device, little attention has been paid to running and testing the interactive prototypes on the actual mobile devices at the early stage in the design process. The latter is either associated with extensive programming and development which incurs higher costs and therefore a smaller number of longer iteration cycles, or simulating interaction by means that do not appropriately fit the mobile scenario.

Significant savings in time, effort and cost can be achieved by specifying the layouts for user interfaces and their interaction using data models (a set of image-based scenes and controls responsible for the flow between the scenes) that are loaded directly onto mobile devices and automatically rebuilt into functional prototypes so that the involved stakeholders can actually feel, experience, work through, play with and test the design and functionality of the mobile application.

Quickly and effectively specifying and updating the data models is crucial to the success of this approach. Due to time and resource constraints, I am unable to develop such a vital application from scratch, at this moment. Instead of that, people can employ an already existing similar application, Flowella (http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/7557c13f-0b43-4805-85ce-8414bfbade57/Flowella.html), for the definition and packaging of the data models in combination with my own Android application FUIP (Functional User Interface Prototypes) for loading and testing of the data models on the actual mobile devices.