Comments on: Behind the scenes: evolving the UI

By: Chris Neal

Chris Neal — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:28:56 +0000

Thanks – I’ll check out those MockUpMagnets they sound good!

By: Michal

Michal — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:38:10 +0000

Great post!

I love Balsamiq! Use it every week.
Before I use Balsamiq though, I like to sketch on a whiteboard first, just like you advised in your post.

I like using MockUpMagnets.com for that white-board phase.
Great for client meetings, UI brainstorming, etc.

By: Chris Neal

Chris Neal — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:24:25 +0000

Thanks for the feedback David. I agree with you that not including the UI prototyping in the Sprints is a mistake. If I can elaborate on what we do it might answer some of your questions (and possibly raise some more!). We did quite a bit of initial prototyping in Sprints 0 and 1, but as we are a new product we couldn’t possibly prototype everything up front, we have to do it as we go.

One of my roles is Product Owner and I create the initial mock-ups, but these generally evolve as we review them at the Sprint planning meeting. We initially agreed the screens on a whiteboard during the Sprint planning and then put them into Balsamiq, but this was taking too long. I now try and get some initial mock-ups for the stories I want in the next sprint done ahead of the Sprint planning. The Sprint Planning meeting is critical as it brings together the developers and UI designers to review the screens together.

Of course they designs are never fixed and we often have to amend them once the development is under way. Any changes are generally agreed as we go, if it is a big change/issue we might discuss at the daily stand-up.

As we progress we’ll need to figure out how we factor in usability and user suggestions to our process, but I think we’ve got a good foundation to extend.

By: David Palomar

David Palomar — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:05:36 +0000

A very interesting post, I am looking for information on how to integrate UI designers into the scrum process, because in many projects the UI is seen as an external task to the project and it is not to the planning, except perhaps in the first sprint . Of course, no assessment tasks usability, and so on. Something that I think is a mistake.

This post gives me a clue.

But who decides what is the best prototype, the Product Owner? “You realize a sprint 0 to produce the prototypes? You decide in daily meetings? How evolutionary prototype integrals in the sprints with the backend?
A lot of questions, I know.

By: Chris Neal

Chris Neal — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:01:17 +0000

Thanks Mark. I’m glad you found it useful!

By: Mark Tattersall

Mark Tattersall — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:17:10 +0000

Nice post. It is always good to hear how the development process works in real life from shop to shop.

I think the point you make about Photoshop is very valid. The 2nd stage prototping I have seen has always been in HTML, CSS to ensure that the design is grounded in reality.