Nice article. The link to “HTML Prototyping Primer” article seems to be broken: I think it is now at

http://boxesandarrows.com/dreamweaver-primer/

There are templates available on the web, where the main elements are laid out and the css does the placement.

These have several different configurations that all use the same HTML page.

You can find the ones I use here
http://www.contentwithstyle.co.uk/Articles/17/a-css-framework.

Two minor downsides that I’ve found with HTML prototypes—probably can be overcome simply with very clear communication. First, I’ve found that people are much more tempted to make prototypes really pretty, with color, etc—spending unnecessary time on presentation simply because it’s HTML, and they’re used to doing more polished looking things in HTML. In the same way, on each of the couple of projects in which there was an HTML prototype, I’ve found myself having to fight to not reuse the HTML code from the prototype…I guess it just feels wrong to people somehow to recreate HTML that exists in some HTML version, regardless of how purposely slapped together that code was….

Also, you mention that one of the main limitation of one of the main limitations of the “flat” prototyping tools like Visio is that they’re not interactive or sharable over the internet. You can in fact create HTMLish prototypes in Visio—you can add a hyperlink to make one object (say a button) link to another page (through InsertàHyperlink), and then Save As HTML. It creates weird (and large) image map based pages, which are a bit quirky and buggy, but they are clickable enough to user test with, and sharable over the web. If you want to go nuts, you can even put code behind any of the objects through VB (I’ve not tried it, but I assume it could be conditional, etc.). The one thing you can’t do is have working controls (i.e. you can’t write in text fields, drop downs don’t drop-down).

HTML prototyping offers a lot of advantages such as a very realistic user experience. I personnaly use illustratorto make sketch and diagram using a mix of wireframe for the screen prototyping and some mix of UML and merisse for the functionnal flow and so on.

Before making prototypes, i was senior HTML integrator and client side developper using Javascript and so on… I should have make prototypes in HTML but i had the following problem : when u have made a first version of a site prototype, HTML is very heavy when you have to make an important change in the prototype.

An other problem is to want to be too much realistic in the user experience. If you prototype navigation, prototyping this navigation require sometime to develop all the machanism of this navigation and then, i ve a problem with this time wasting.

In my experience with Illustrator, my main advantage is to have a very fast authoring tool for modifications and free drawings. We can also make clickable demo using Illsutrator as authoring tool and exprot the sketch in SVG. I will make a demo of this because i think it could be really interesting to show to the community.

Thanks a lot again for your paper.
PS : excuse my poor english

Your article implies that the reason designers avoid HTML is laziness, lack of training, and lack of personal comfort. There is however an important strategic reason to avoid HTML wireframes and prototypes.

Good interaction design processes strive to create artifacts that conform as closely as possible to the user’s mental model. This is difficult, of course, because the easy path to software product creation always adheres to the implementation model: that is, solutions reflect their construction methods and media.

Interaction design uses many methods to limit this effect. Most methods seek to remain “abstract” or “technology-neutral” during the early stages of design. Using HTML for early models and prototypes may seem innocuous enough, but it is not a technology-neutral technique.

For this reason designers often seek to avoid HTML until later in the design cycle.