DENIM A Sketching Tool for Prototyping Web and Desktop UIs Mark Newman and Jimmy Lin Group for User Interface Research UC Berkeley July 8, 1999

Background: SILK An informal tool for designing GUIs

DENIM goals §Real, deployable system §Support for web site design §Expanded capabilities §Even more informal than SILK SILK

Web Design Study §Visited design firms l 4 Design houses, 1 large internet company §“Ethnographically-inspired” interviews with designers l 4 “UI” Designers, 3 “Graphic” Designers, 4 Hybrids §Interviews focused on specific projects, artifacts l “Take me through a recent project” l Artifacts were collected where possible

Design Specialties §Information design l structure, categories of information §Navigation design l interaction with information structure §Graphic design l visual presentation of information and navigation (color, typography, etc.) Navigation Design Information Design Graphic Design

Design Phases Discovery Design Exploration Design Refinement Production Assemble information relevant to project Explore alternative design approaches (information, navigation, and graphic) Select one approach and iteratively refine it Create prototypes and specifications (Hand off to implementers)...

Design Phases and DENIM Discovery Design Exploration Design Refinement Production information design navigation design graphic design DENIM other tools Focus of DENIM: Early phase information and navigation design

Design Implications §Designers collect and structure large amounts of information l Need support for information design §Designers produce intermediate artifacts l Focus on creation of artifacts appropriate to design phase §Designers sketch to rapidly explore design alternatives l A sketch-based tool will be helpful in early design l Expression more important than precision

DENIM

Basic Sketching

DENIM Semantic Zooming

DENIM: Semantic Zooming Site Map view: many pages visible but little or no page-level detail

DENIM : Semantic Zooming Storyboard view: several pages visible, navigation apparent, some page detail

DENIM : Semantic Zooming Sketch view: single page, all detail visible

Tools §Pan and zoom §Pencils l Generic pencil for sketching l “Event pencils” for sketching arrows associated with particular events §Rubber stamps l For inserting components l Built-in components (e.g. buttons) can be sketched

Storyboarding §Composed of panels §Arrows represent transitions between panels §Example:

Storyboarding §Transition arrows also represent different event types §Supported: l Right click l Double click l Timer l Mouse over/off l Animation 3 sec 1 Edit… Delete

Conditionals §For describing transitions that depend on state of widgets §One panel per condition

Components §Used for custom widgets and reusable sequences of panels §Internally structured as storyboards §Can have named events Storyboard1 - DENIM  cancel done

Using components §Pick up component’s rubber stamp §Stamp component into panel or background §Built-in components (buttons, etc.) can also be sketched

Questions?

Design Specialties §Information Architecture l encompasses info & navigation design, also focuses on content §User Interface Design l also includes testing and evaluation Information Architecture User Interface Design

Conditionals §Can collapse panels into stack to save space  1 of 2 