[ux] What are your favorite tools?

[Linda Naeun Lee]

On 2016-10-19 15:48, Lunar wrote:
> Linda Naeun Lee:
>> Does anyone here have any favorite wireframing, prototyping, 
>> user-testing
>> tools? I've done a search on the myself, but 1) I'm sure I've missed 
>> some
>> good ones, and 2) I value your input.
>> 
>> Bonus points if:
>> -it works well with Tor Browser.
>> -it's free.
>> -it can do multiple things in the pipeline.
>> -it doesn't require downloading software.
>> 
>> My favorite contender so far was UX Pin (It's an easier-to-use 
>> competitor of
>> Axure RP), a SaaS application allows wireframing, prototyping, 
>> annotating,
>> and user testing all in one.  However, it doesn't work well with Tor 
>> and
>> requires a monthly fee.
> 
> In the spirit of “free software needs free tools” [1], I recommend
> having a look at Inkscape and the SVG format in general.
> 
>  [1]: https://mako.cc/writing/hill-free_tools.html
> 
> A quick search lead me to think that some people are actually doing
> active mockups using Inkscape:
> http://www.slideshare.net/kattekrab/inkscape-for-web-and-ui-mockups
> http://eclipsesource.com/blogs/2012/07/03/wireframing-inkscape-javascript/
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMDu6sj8DkY
> 
> Hope that helps,
> _______________________________________________
> UX mailing list
> UX at lists.torproject.org
> https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ux

Lunar:

Thanks for the link. I think your reply was the most helpful so far, 
because it actually contained examples, and links. I especially liked 
the video, which also had some scripts to use to make interactive 
wireframes. It's something that I never thought to do myself, because 
the applications that do this for you are ubiquitous. But looking at the 
script made me realize that I totally can manually make my own 
interactive wireframes.

Thanks for the reminder of free tools, as well. I think I need to 
evaluate the importance for following ideologies more strongly rather 
than just thinking about practicality.

Isa and I even talked about writing our own tools to test users at one 
point, so that we do not need to rely on another service (but there are 
services that recruit for you, gather all the data in a csv for you, 
etc., which are very cheap).

But to be honest... I'm currently biased towards in shaving overhead, 
but that might be because the UX group is in its infancy, is a bit 
understaffed (but so is everything at Tor), and I would like to make 
changes ASAP. There are (not free) tools (that I don't see free 
equivalents for) that would save me a LOT of time, combines a lot of 
functionality (one tool versus 5 different ones for each part of the 
process), and is easier for collaboration (for instance, I wouldn't need 
to share any files, get people to run a script, etc., but just direct 
them to a page).

But I shouldn't let work throughput and convenience to be the only basis 
for my decisions. Thanks for your input!

Cheers,
Linda

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