Boxes And Arrows : The Design Behind the Design

Article Idea:

Interactive prototypes

suggested by Maureen Kelly on 2006/09/11

In prototyping, interaction designers often need to get a feel for how a design idea is going to *work*—not just what individual screens are going to look like.

PowerPoint has navigation features for creating prototypes you can do more than just page through. You can create links, buttons, and clickable images that mirror the sort of interactivity available on the Web. It’s great way to get a feel for how a website or application is going to work, and it’s a lot faster than prototyping in HTML. It’s also portable (you can email or print prototypes easily), and lets you add comments in the margins.

I’ve met a lot of designers who use PowerPoint for wireframing without even realizing these interactive features are available. I’d be happy to write an article showing how these features can help create quick, interactive prototypes.