Go Mockingbird
December 4th, 2009
My Google Reader delivered to me this morning a wondrous gift. I subscribe to Brian Cray’s blog about social experience design and – what joy! what rapture! – he’s written on a subject near and dear to my heart; wireframing. In advising, “How to Start Wireframing,” my dear Mr. Cray mentions some tools that were, until now, unknown to this soul humbly devoted to the ’sketch it on a napkin’ or, oftentimes even more convoluted method, ’sketch it out in Illustrator.’ Poor AI, I never meant to abuse you so. I’m comfortable with you and it just seemed like a good fit at the time. In my early days of stumbling into the role of website strategist/content developer/user interface designer, before I even knew these terms existed, I would create maps for my clients so that they could better visualize how all of the pages in their website would fit together. These came to resemble the hierarchy chart of a major corporation. These maps have since evolved to include a few tiers of, (for lack of a better word) wireframe sketches, all neatly packed into a pdf that I zip up and send off to clients with a sigh and a prayer that they will be able to decipher my blood, sweat and tears. I was just trying to build a better website – who knew?
I digress. Please visit http://gomockingbird.com so you can be wowed for yourself how euphorically simple Saikat Chakrabarti and Sheena Pakanati have made this process. Essentially, you build a mock of the structural components of a website that actually functions like a website prototype. After a strategy call, open this delicious little web app, drag and drop your elements, assign links, save. All that’s left is to copy, paste & email a link to your client and they can navigate through the structure, identifying where their needs may not quite be met before you’ve even opened Photoshop or Illustrator.
