The Interactive Ideas Blog

Consulting Services for ProtoShare are now available. If you need help prototyping a complex website, simulating rich Internet functionality, or transitioning from another system, let us do the heavy lifting. We will work with you to plan and build custom solutions that meet your specific needs and that support your overall business strategy. Your success is our primary goal! To request a quote, please complete this form.

We offer a wide range of services covering all aspects of the prototyping process including:

Building templates

Creating resources that can be reused across projects by multiple stakeholders is an important way to maximize your team’s efficiency and success. In ProtoShare, templates are the primary way to reuse resources such as headers, footers, and sub-navigation.
ProtoShare Consulting Services can build a flexible and extensible library of templates that meet your current requirements and that grow with your future needs. We can create a collection of stock company templates or custom templates for your key clients.

Creating custom components

To support the creation of rich prototypes, ProtoShare includes a large number of built-in components. These components can be used individually or they can be combined in unique and complex ways. Moreover, you can create any component by specifying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

ProtoShare Consulting Services can create custom components that suit your specific needs. From complex navigation schemes to completely customized components, we can create a prototyping experience that is visually and functionally compelling.

Transitioning from another tool

Prototyping has been accepted as a best-practice by many software professionals and organizations. This wide acceptance is matched by the large variety of tools used to create prototypes. Everything from simple drawing and presentation applications to complex development environments have been tried – with varying levels of success.

ProtoShare Consulting Services can help you transition from your legacy prototyping tool to ProtoShare. We can reproduce content and interactivity from almost any tool, providing you with continuity and peace of mind for all your projects.

Incorporating branding information

Whether your audience is an internal development team or a big-name client, branding can be an important way to bring your prototype to life. Including a client’s logo and design aesthetic, or a corporate color scheme and terminology can add a comforting feeling of familiarity, while strengthening project ownership.

ProtoShare Consulting Services can incorporate your branding information. We can create brand-specific designs, content, and styles to produce the desired look and feel.

Training your team

ProtoShare projects typically involve multiple stakeholders with diverse skills such as information architects, designers, and developers. Bringing everyone up to speed can be a real challenge. And with advanced functionality such as rich Internet simulation, stateful wireframes, and complex navigation schemes, there’s a lot to learn!

ProtoShare Consulting Services can train your team on how to maximize the benefits of ProtoShare. You’ll learn the necessary skills to efficiently develop compelling prototypes, while increasing efficiency, productivity, and satisfaction.
Get started today.

We get a lot of questions and inquiries about ways to work more quickly in ProtoShare. One of the most common questions involves keyboard shortcuts, particularly in the wireframe editor. Did you know that ProtoShare has nearly 40 keyboard shortcuts?

A few popular keyboard shortcuts:

Duplicate a component or grouping of components on the canvas:
Alt + Click and Drag

Cut, Copy, and Paste a component or grouping of components on the canvas, or from one page or project to another:
Ctrl (PC) / Cmd (Mac) + x / c / v

You’ll find all ProtoShare keyboard shortcuts, and more, in the User Guide, located under Help in the application menu.  You can also download a PDF of the  shortcuts to have a handy reference sheet. And get ready for an easier and faster prototyping experience.

At ProtoShare, we strongly believe in low-fidelity wireframes and prototypes. After all, wireframes aren't the end goal, they are merely a tool to use in a larger process. Most of the time, simple wireframes kickstart the needed discussion to make decisions. There are times, however, when simple doesn't cut it. Sometimes you need to build out a specific feature more completely to adequately experience and discuss it. At these times, wireframing applications turn into limitations because you can only build what their component palettes allow you to build. That is if you aren't using ProtoShare and the HTML Sandbox.

The ProtoShare front-end is all HTML/JavaScript, not Flash. Consequently, this allows users to do some unique things, like view the prototype in a browser, or use CSS to change the appearance of components. Now with the HTML Sandbox, ProtoShare gives you the ability to create and add any component they can think up and code. And with the proliferation of JavaScript libraries like Ext (which we use to build ProtoShare), YUI, jQuery, mooTools, etc it is not too much work to find a pre-built component and modify it to fit your needs.

The video below shows some of the possibilities you now have with the Sandbox:

So, how does it work? The HTML Sandbox is currently under our "Experimental" components at the bottom of the palette in the editor. Select it like any other component, click the Source Code field in the properties to open the HTML editor, and type or paste in your code. Close the HTML editor and switch back to Prototype mode, or click the Interactive Mode button and check it out.

Below is some sample code you can use to test it. This is a very simple example of doing a basic on-the-fly form validation where it highlights blank entries.

<html>
<head>
     <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>

     <style type="text/css">
          .error { background-color: #FFD2D2; }
          div, input { font-size:11px; font-family:Verdana; padding:5px; }
          input { padding:2px; border:1px solid black; }
     </style>
</head>

<body>
     <form name="user" action="#" onsubmit="return false;">
          <div>Name <input type="text" id="name"/> <span></span></div>
          <div>Email <input type="text" id="email"/> <span></span></div>
          <div><input type="submit" value="Submit" /></div>
     </form>

     <script type="text/javascript">
          $('input').blur( function() {
               if( $(this).val() == '' ) {
                    $(this).parent().addClass( 'error' );
                    $(this).next('span').html(' this cannot be blank');
               } else {
                    $(this).parent().removeClass( 'error' );
                    $(this).next('span').html('');
               }
          });
          $('form').submit( function() {
               $('#name').blur();
               $('#email').blur();
          });
     </script>

</body>
</html>

Notice in this example we're using the jQuery library hosted on code.google.com. If you want to use some jQuery (or other JavaScript library) plugin you find, there will probably be additional files necessary. You can either paste the source code into the HTML editor, or you can upload the files to the Asset Library and link to them.

You upload JavaScript and CSS files to the Asset Library just as you would any image asset. Once the files are uploaded, click on a file to see the full path to the file. These links take the form of /Asset/<directory>/<file>. For example if I were going to use a jQuery library called accordion.js, I would upload it to the Asset Library and my HTML Sandbox code would look something like this:

<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/Assets/js/accordion.js"></script>
</head>

...

Please remember this is still an experimental component. We consider this an advanced component as you need to know a fair amount about HTML and JavaScript to get the most out of it. We're very excited about the possibilities here, and we think you'll be too. We'd also like to hear your thoughts about the HTML Sandbox. Please leave us some comments here describing how you are using it, or how you would like to use it.

As part of a comprehensive look at prototyping solutions, trends, and what the future holds, three of us from ProtoShare were recently interviewed. Check it out. And if you really have a keen interest in all of it, there’s even an un-edited 32 minute audio interview available, for your listening pleasure. We were interviewed by two smart, well-prepared, and knowledgeable people, Sasha Kovaliov and Ludmila Kurbatskaya. They had just started a new online project called “CIO Happy Hour.” As they were preparing to post the interview, we found ourselves wanting to know more about them, and what they hope to accomplish with their new venture. We switched roles.

Please share a little bit of history about CIO Happy Hour?
The CIO Happy Hour project appeared when we were thinking about better ways to engage our customers, who are mostly IT top managers and business owners. From our own (corporate) experience one of the main issues in discussing technologies and business is the lack of understanding: businessmen and tech people speak different languages, therefore business needs decent “translation” into language of technologies, and vice versa. New technology opportunities require both business strategies and planning Our goal is to make these two worlds closer, give information about the tools, talk about IT business, listen to the questions and issues of the readers and provide exclusive answers from real people.

Where are you located?
Our office is located in the development center of Itransition in Minsk, Belarus. We’re also coordinating sales and marketing activities in other markets (Ludmila is responsible for the Dutch region, and I am for the UK) very often we travel there as well.

What made you think of featuring the wireframing and prototyping industry?
We were rambling through emerging trends, and I came across the poll “Best RIA apps of 2009.” I noticed the majority of the apps that were nominated were in the wireframing/prototyping space. After a brief analysis, it was clear, that the wireframing topic is what we need. On one hand, it’s a great opportunity for development and collaboration optimization. On the other, there are a lot of new players in this market and it’s not easy to be aware of the latest changes.

Initially we planned four interviews, but after our first discussion we got quite a lot of attention from other companies, so we extended the list a bit and changed the format to a more prolonged marathon. We also noticed that the community of UX designers and IAs is very strong; we’ve received great feedback on Twitter and Friendfeed that helped us a great deal.

Any additional tidbits or information you would like to share with us is most welcome.
We are still experimenting a bit with the format. For the next round, we will conduct a poll that will let you decided on the topic. We want to know to who our readers want to talk, and what’s on their mind. We are flexible and open to new ideas and will continue focusing on business and IT cooperation, unique professional content, and comprehensive burning answers.

According to O’Reilly Media’s  Inside RIA, ProtoShare is among the ranks of Google Maps, Mint, Quicken Online, Mini Cars, and others as the one of the Top 50 Most Usable RIAs (Rich Internet Applications). We are quite proud of our selection, especially considering that ProtoShare was not designed in Flash, Flex,  or Silverlight, but rather uses HTML, Javascript, and CSS to create interactive prototypes with real-time collaboration.

Theresa Neil and Bill Scott, authors of the book, Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions, made the selections. Each RIA had to pass two sets of criteria.

First, does it abide by Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Principles?

1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation

Second, was it developed with six basic principles guiding RIA development?

1. Make It Direct
2. Keep It Lightweight
3. Stay on the Page
4. Provide an Invitation
5. Use Transitions
6. React Immediately

With your feedback and suggestions, we continue to keep improving the interface, functionality, usability, and value of of ProtoShare. Stay tuned for some exciting new features coming this fall.