Tag: Tools

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Talking about about design artifacts

On Friday I visited the REAP Felt Lab to talk with a group of people about design artifacts.

It was a bit of an overview of some of the things used to communicate a design to the various stakeholders in a product development project. As time was limited, the focus was on representations of the user interface. That is, while they’re important, we didn’t get into such useful research artifacts as personas or scenarios or journey maps.

We did cover such obvious candidates as wireframes and prototypes in various levels of fidelity, exploring the different forms that they can take, and their strengths and weaknesses in different contexts. We also looked at sketches, which might have a more limited audience — maybe even just the designer in some cases — but which are something that I use on every design project. (As an aside, I’ve written before about pencils and how regularly I use them for sketching and more.)

The discussion was lively and the group was an engaging one. I always find it much more interesting to hear what other folks have to say, and welcomed the thoughts that everyone shared. My thanks to REAP for inviting me!

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My primary design tool is a pencil

A close up of a mechanical pencil tip

I sometimes have conversations with designers, and non-designers, about tools used in designing for user experience. While I’ve used many software tools over the years, such as the venerable Adobe Photoshop, some folks are mildly surprised to hear that my primary design tool, one that I use every day, is the decidedly humble pencil.

A pencil is simple, highly portable, reliable, and works well for a number of tasks. My main pencils are mechanical ones that takes .5mm leads. I’ve found that .3mm leads are too thin for my often-heavy hand and easily break. I also have a pencil that uses .7mm leads, but I don’t use it as much.

The primary, though not sole, design task that the pencil supports occurs early in the design process. Ideation involves a lot of generation, exploration, and development of ideas. The pencil is the tool that enables me to capture my visual thinking quickly. Whether used to create tiny thumbnail pictures of a screen’s overall layout, or for capturing more details on a form design, a pencil enables me to get the job done quickly. The drawings are often pretty rudimentary and ugly, but that’s fine for capturing my visual thinking for my own use. For sharing ideas I usually render the visuals in a more refined way.

A companion tool much of the time, particularly when at work, is a 7.5 inch by 9 inch notebook. Sometimes, though, I’ll switch to a larger pad of grid paper. When I’m away from the office or home, I use a smaller Moleskine notebook, which has a lovely tactile quality as well as paper that takes pencil marks quite well. Really, though, any small notebook would do.

In addition to my mechanical pencil, I also use wood-cased coloured pencils for various reasons and at various design stages. They’re a little messier, as they need periodic sharpening and the leads are more prone to breaking, but I like them. I’ll use colours to lightly shade areas in a pencil sketch to help me easily pick out major features at a glance, or use a heavier coloured line to call attention to a particular feature.

As an aside, one of my favourite books is The Pencil, by Henry Petroski. It’s a great read that explores the nature of engineering and product development via an engrossing story of the history of the pencil.