Adventures in code

It’s all nice and easy telling people to draw things on pieces of paper and such to visualize how the program works once you’re done, but most people need something a little more substantial to hold on to.

In theory you could start by functional prototype and use that. The trouble with those kinds of things is that you need a lot of low tech technical stuff done before even the barest of minimum can be shown.

And as with anything digital … there is a solution to exactly that kind of problem.

Link : https://www.figma.com

You do need to learn a few basic concepts, but it does make it easier to make designs that can be shared over the internet.

And as always … there’s youtube videos that do a much better job explaining everything.

The ‘free’ version only allows a maximum of 3 design files, but those files are more like ‘projects’ so they can have a lot of content. Restrictions like the use of a library for your components shouldn’t be an issue at first.

It runs in your browser so you don’t even need to install an app if you don’t want to. You do need to create an account and be on-line …

A simple intro tutorial below should be enough to help get started :

One thing to keep in mind that while these tools help create the design … they don’t do the programming or actual creation of screens.
You still need to do that, but at least they’ve done the heavy lifting and as I said they allow you to share your design.

Yes … they do exist.
There is Sketch ( https://www.sketch.com/ ), but that one isn’t free and requires a 9$/month subscription.

It’s not much … but if you’re not using it every day it is a bit expensive.

Feel free to provide additional suggestions in the comments …