Tag: mobile

The 20 best wireframe tools

 

Creative Bloq lists 20 best wireframe tools.  The selection varies from free, through cheap, to expensive, and covers web-based, desktop, and mobile solutions.  Quite handy for those of us not involved in web design on a daily basis, but needing a sketch / mockup / wireframe tool once in a while.

The list includes the following:

  1. Wireframe.cc
  2. Moqups
  3. UXPin
  4. Fluid UI
  5. Balsamiq Mockups
  6. Axure
  7. Pidoco
  8. Visio (surprise, surprise)
  9. InDesign CC
  10. Photoshop CC (no surprise)
  11. Photoshare
  12. Penultimate
  13. Pencil Project
  14. OmniGraffle
  15. Gliffy
  16. MockFlow
  17. Frame Box
  18. FlairBuilder
  19. Justinmind
  20. HotGloo

Update (May 22, 2017): Also, have a look at this list of mockup tools.

My lightbulb moment with modular design

Cameron Lock, of Yammer fame, describes the complexities involved that led her and the team to a simpler, more modular approach to the mobile application design.  The most important bit after grouping everything into modules, practically, I think, is this:

We stopped defining margins between modules. Instead, all the spacing in the app would come from padding within the modules — specifically, top padding. Bottom padding would have worked, too; just not both. The key is to choose one of the two and stick with it.

What’s the best framework for building mobile apps?

It’s been a while (a few years actually) since I looked at building a mobile application.  I don’t have the need to build one now, but I like keeping an eye on what’s going on that domain.

Even back when I was involved with mobile applications, the better approach was to use a framework, rather than building the app from scratch.  The frameworks that existed at the time would help with building a cross-platform (Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, etc) application, and have a better integration with the mobile’s hardware and features (touchscreen, networking, vibration, camera, etc.)

As with many other cutting edge technologies, things move very fast and things get outdated pretty quickly.  So it was interesting to read – What’s the best framework for building mobile apps? – which covers today’s options.  Some of the solutions survived the last few years, some didn’t, and there are a few new ones.  The frameworks covered in the article are:

The article is a good quick overview of what’s out there and why to pick one over the other.

How Voice Search Will Forever Change SEO

Search Engine Optimization is not one of my favorite subjects to talk about. But I think this article is worth the time.  It explains some of the challenges with voice search in very simple terms, and shows how voice search is growing and affecting the web.

Voice search is the fastest growing type of search, according to the keynote speech given by Behshad Behzadi at SMX West in March, Principal Engineer at Google Zurich. Already, 55% of teens and 41% of adults use voice search on a daily basis, and that number is only growing. The allure of voice chat is undeniable—it’s faster, it’s hands-free, it lets you multi-task, and (especially among millennials) it’s considered cool.

Voice chat is also becoming increasingly reliable as technology improves. In fact, two years ago word error rate was over 20%, but current speech recognition word error rate is as low as 8%—a huge leap in a short amount of time.