But those are just the accoutrement needed to set the stage. An interaction designer must rely on one or more tools with which to turn the brilliance bursting forth from highly stimulated and caffeinated synapses, into pure bottom line revenue. Well, ideally at least.

I have my staples, those products I cannot and will not live without, which happen to all be owned by the same company these days. Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver have fueled the development of most software products I have worked on. Though they will always be used for my ultimate design and final polishing, I’ve recently discovered a few products that make creating a prototype almost as easy as having a thought, and I want to share these finds in case other user experience professionals or developers looking to prototype new features might benefit from them.

Balsamiq Mockups Makes Rapid Prototyping Fun!

I happened onto Balsamiq Mockups via a Twitter comment by Alex Horstmann about how great this product is. One of the big back-and-forth debates among information architects and user experience designers is the level of prototype that should be created and presented. Info architects generally rely on wireframes… the outlining of sections and navigation elements and the like. People who design the product line branding and comprehensive user experience like I do, often go whole-hog and want to communicate all their creative ideas, along with the taxonomy, navigation, etc. It can be time-consuming to do that, and sometimes even a visual designer just needs to show a simple feature interaction concept. Historically, I love to sketch with pencil and paper. It’s been the fastest way for me to work a design problem out for myself. But then I usually want or need to share it with developers, and I have a sketch. Do I scan it, recreate it using one of my standard tools, or just get on the phone and describe it???

With Balsamiq Mockups, I can grab and place “sketchy” elements such as dropdowns, icons and other form elements onto a blank notebook page online, then save and send it to my team. Peldi Guilizzoni, owner of Balsamiq and developer of the product, sets a new standard for customer service, which is one reason why this product will always draw raves from me, despite my occasional gripes about Adobe Air, which is the platform the product is built upon. Meet Peldi and you will agree with me. This product was and is “designed for users” by Peldi himself. If you have a problem, he strives to fix it, and uses the excellent Get Satisfaction site to stay in constant contact with users who need help. If you have a request, Peldi will seriously consider it, usually implement it, and if he cannot or shouldn’t, he provides the research behind his decision and fully explains why not. That is RARE, even in this day of more transparent and more open applications.

And now maybe Peldi will know why it took me so long to put this review up – I can’t stop blathering on about how great he is with his customers, and stay focused on the software itself, which is why you’re here. So go see the software for yourself!

>> Try it now, before you buy it!
>> Twitter Balsamiq

Skitch Takes Screenshots to a New Level of Convenience

Working with software, I’ve taken a lot of screenshots. I’ve taken them into Photoshop and refashioned them completely, I’ve drawn circles and put giant pink “Please do not do this!!” messages on them, and I have often had to take multiple shots of a long web screen and then put together the hacked up pieces in a Photoshop file so I can have the long screen to work on or annotate. Thankfully, a new Adobe Air tool called Websnapshot has eliminated that issue, as long as you have a direct link to point to.

But Skitch, though it doesn’t take a screenshot of the entire web page, does so much more, that it is well worth the money you don’t have to pay for it. It’s in Beta and Free as of this writing. Here’s what Skitch does, brilliantly and easily: find something you need to take a screenshot of, open the Skitch application, snap the portion of the screen you want, draw circles, boxes and write notes on it to explain your issue, post it to your online account, then share the link with the people you choose. Nathen Harvey, Director of Operations at VisualCV, turned me onto this modern miracle. He uses it to communicate with users and developers, because he can snap a screen and put notes on it and distribute it within minutes. The ability to post a screenshot online and grab the link to send in an email, rather than having to save and send an attachment from your own hard disk space is truly awesome. Learn the lingo and try it! I love this tool.

>> It’s free… nothing to lose but a moment of time. Try it!
>> Twitter Skitch
>> See Nathen’s Skitch Message Online

GUIMags & GUIMagnets Makes Whiteboard Collaboration Productive Beyond the Meeting

Gathering in a conference room, brainstorming with smart people, the smell of fresh markers permeating the air… nothing beats it (sometimes!) But after hours spent in a conference room, what do you have? A lot of stuff on a whiteboard that has to be transcribed, remembered and implemented immediately, or all the hours of work are at risk of being lost forever.

Enter these little whiteboard magnets that are so obvious, you’ll wonder how you lived without them all these years. I love the GUImags story… the lead designer had some carpal tunnel issues, and was stuck at home healing. He used refrigerator magnets to make interface elements, and the Eureka! moment struck him: he needed magnets of interface elements to make design faster and easier. (And less physically debilitating!)

GUIMagnets is a similar product of laminated form elements. Rik Schot, a User Experience Designer in Nederland, was working on a website form (and no doubt, making frequent changes) when he realized there had to be a better way to prototype.

Now, there is a trick to this – you will have to take pictures and distribute them of the whiteboard designs, until GUImags partners with someone like Polyvision or Scanr, or designs a unique solution themselves. Output of the meeting is a critical element of this process and I hope they will come up with a full solution soon, because I think this could be a really valuable product in team settings. GUIMags mentions several other products coming soon that will aid your prototyping & collaboration: GUIBoards is a neat whiteboard with built-in resolution sizes that looks like a helpful concept.

GUIMagnets are sold on a laminated sheet, but GUImags come in a little briefcase – you’ll look so official when you show up for meetings!

>> Learn more about GUIMags
>> Learn more about GUIMagnets

Additional Products for User Interface Designers

Gliffy Does Diagrams in a Jiffy!

I so couldn’t help that headline. But Gliffy does seem really cool. I have known about them for several years, and they’ve rebranded themselves to focus on using their tool for online wireframing, diagrams, storyboards, etc. This tool is easy to use and would really come in handy for professional sitemaps and interaction flowcharts. They offer a free one-month trial, and paid subscriptions following that. I haven’t tried the wireframing options they offer, but it looks pretty neat. Check them out.

Dabbleboard – A Powerful Online Whiteboard

I just discovered Dabbleboard but have only dabbled in it so far… it takes a bit of getting used to. The concept is really cool though – you can draw online, instead of offline using pencil and paper, and then show your lovely sketches to others much quicker than you could sketch, scan and send.

I tried making a user interface as lovely as the Dappleboard example shown here, but couldn’t in the few minutes I spent with the product. I think you have to add some elements or something from this UI Toolkit. I’ll explore the product more when I have time. For me, Balsamiq Mockups was faster and easier to get started with, but Dabbleboard has one key thing I like, which is the idea of drawing electronically so I can avoid the step of scanning, or recreating sketches in a full-blown prototype before showing them to people. You don’t have to sign up to play, which is awesome, so try Dabbleboard out today and let me know what you think.

Have I missed any other cool prototyping or user interface-related products? I’d love to hear about them if you use something not mentioned here!
 

The Fresh Solution: VisualCV + EchoSign Accelerate the Process!

EchoSign is an effective way to have documents (like an NDA) signed electronically. The cost is free for 5 signatures a month, with Pro, Team & Enterprise plans available that range from $12.95 to $299 per month. You simply prepare your documents in Microsoft Word, Excel, WordPerfect, Text or PDF, upload, and send them via an email form to one or more people. When all the signatures are collected, EchoSign will send copies to everyone as well as save a copy in your online account. A pretty valuable service, for businesses of all sizes… in fact, it’s even integrated into Salesforce so sales folks can close deals more quickly.

But combined with a private VisualCV, you can create a powerful process that might help turn that prospect into a client, faster than ever before. Here’s how this works:

With this solution, you have a couple of options for sending the prospect to your private portfolio once they’ve signed the NDA:

• When you get the email receipt for the signed NDA, log into visualcv.com and “Share” it to send an email to your prospect that will contain a secure link to your VisualCV.

• Send the private VisualCV automatically using an autoresponder. You will need to first share it from within the system (send it to your own email address) to generate the secure link, which you can use in other emails. Create an autoresponder in your email program that will automatically email that special link to your prospect once the form is signed. (You may have to create a new autoresponder for each prospect, unless you can define some scripting actions that will make the process work based on emails or subject lines.)

That’s it! Imagine the other possibilities for round-trip processes and electronic approvals that you could design with EchoSign to make your life easier or your sales efforts more effective. You could…

• Receive an RFP -> Send a Proposal -> Receive a Signed Contract

• Send Offer to Applicant -> Receive Acceptance -> Send New Hire Policies -> Receive Signature

• Send & Receive Legal, Medical, Financial, Insurance or Real Estate Documents (to name a few)

• Get new hires onboard with an HR document pack in 10 minutes flat (like EchoSign does)

Get the tools and let me know what you think!

>> VisualCV
>> EchoSign
>> Mutual Non-Disclosure Sample

After that big post, I discovered Visual CV, a free (as of right now at least) hosted web application that makes putting together a visual resume EASY. I spent some time this morning putting mine together, and I am hooked. Here’s why:

1 | The interface is intuitive enough to use without help – always a plus for never-before-seen-or-used software.

2 | The CV sections are completely customizable, draggable, and easy to add or delete.

3 | The presentation is nice and clean. Though I wish I could insert my own brand elements, the three options for the resume design are pleasant enough to look at.

4 | You can pack all the information a company or recruiter might ever need, into one nice page.

5 | Your resume can be shared, forwarded, printed or saved as a PDF.

6 | You can quickly insert photos, video, diagrams, documents, links and anything else you can think of to help create a great impression. (Check out Guy Kawasaki’s resume!)

7 | The nature of it being hosted for you online, plus the ease of editing, makes it a living document… change it any time you think of something that would make it better!

8 | Sending a link takes much less bandwidth in a talent manager’s inbox than a resume attachment. They can check it out, easily forward it, and let you know if they’d like more information or an electronic document.

Being a user experience designer, I do have a few, teeny requests of things I wish they’d add or fix:

• The executive resume design bothers me. It doesn’t feel quite as “smooth” as the other two.

• I didn’t see an option for recruiters to access a Word doc or plain text option, though you could add one to your portfolio and create a section for it or link to it.

• I cannot help but want more advanced options for branding the design of the resume to make it my own.

• I long for web stats so I can see who has been checking out my resume. (UPDATE: stats are there – I just missed them before!)

• There is either a bug, or a hiccup in Safari on the Mac, with the text being copied/pasted. It didn’t always come in at the same size, and I had to hit return and back up several times, to make it all the same size. A size option for the text would be a nice addition to the Bold, Italic, etc. options.

My resume is a work in progress, but feel free to check it out, and while you’re there, create one of your own! http://www.visualcv.com/kristicolvin/

And if you are a hiring manager or recruiter and would like to fill out my brief survey on whether or not a visual resume can be effective for applicants, please do!

Please note, this information is from the software on my LG Scoop phone, which appears to be different than the software in screenshots on the Alltel site, so the pricing and application information is subject to change. (And not all applications are available on all Alltel phones.)

CELLTOP PRICING – FREEBIES & FEES
First of all, if you have a phone from Alltel with pre-installed Celltop cells on it, go ahead and click that Celltop softkey and feel free to play! The 10 cells included are “free”, and you’ll only be charged airtime for updating the content. If you don’t want to be charged for airtime, you can purchase an unlimited data minutes plan for $10 per month, according to the current Celltop FAQ.

Most of these 10 cells are truly free, and it will be up to you to determine their value. The Realtone Jukebox cell provides an interface to access various ringtones you can buy, but the ringtones themselves are not free. Most of the ringtones I checked cost $2.99 each. To hear the ringtone, press the number next to it (ie. “4″) and a screen will load with a sample of the song. Use your arrow keys carefully to scroll down to the “No” button if you don’t want to purchase the ringtone.

More Celltop cells are available for purchase, and you add them from your phone itself. There are a couple of ways you can add a cell to your phone. One way is to click on the “Celltop” key while in the Celltop application, and bring up a sub-menu where you will see “Add Cells” that will give you the list of cells for sale. Unfortunately, I did not see all the cells listed at mycelltop.com as available, or coming soon, on my phone to buy. Two that I am most interested in are the Search and the Moviegoer cells, and those were not listed. I checked the cost of some of the other cells, and they range in price:

Hockey, Baseball, Golf & Tennis: $1.99/month
House Front (real estate values): $1.99/month
Cheaper Gas: $2.99/month
AccuWeather: $3.99/month
FunScreenz: $3.99/month
Hangman, Trivia & Extreme Sudoku: $2.99/month OR $7.99 unlimited
Wallpaper Universe: 99¢ unlimited (BUT, like Realtone, the wallpapers you like will have to be paid for)

ALLTEL’S AXCESS APPLICATIONS ADD MORE FEATURES
The second way to add Celltop cells, and other applications to your phone is to go in through the Axcess Shop, which you can find in your menu. The Axcess Shop offers various games, wallpapers, music options (if your phone can be utilized as an mp3 player) and a few tools that might make the busy person’s life easier, if they want to pay for the additional services on their phone. There are some hidden gems here, and I would encourage Alltel users to look for themselves to see if there are needed applications here. I found…

GPS Navigation: $3.49/day, 9.99/month or 99.00/year
Axcess Email: $2.99/month
Axcess Search: FREE? (I think!!)

Now, the Axcess Search came as a surprise. I could not find a price associated with using it, and there were ads sprinkled throughout, so I am hoping this feature is indeed free (except for that needed airtime) because this is a pretty cool thing to have at your fingertips, which is why I wanted the Celltop Search cell to buy. I looked up a local company in the yellow pages, found a map and got directions, and searched for games and applications (to buy, of course.) It did not find my listing in the White Pages, which is stunning since Embarq sold our phone number to every malcontent with a telemarketing title it could find, and we’ve been getting tons of unwanted solicitations ever since (but that is for a future blog post.) Because I didn’t find our home phone number, I have no idea how accurate or updated this information is, but I did find Yellow Page info successfully. If this were truly free, and kept me from incurring the costly information fees that my husband yells about ($1.49 per call to Information), that would be very nice indeed!

Unfortunately, I cannot find the Search application that is on my phone on the Alltel site anywhere. Apologies if this is not something available on your phone. And just so you know, this application was not designed to display horizontally, only vertically, so when I slid the phone open, the app did not come with me.

The games and amusements I found in the Axcess Shop offer free previews, and the costs range from $3.49/month to $11.99 unlimited, for things like Snoopy, Wall-E, Lego Star Wars 2, Monster Truck, Wimbledon 2008 and Iron Man, among many others. Some of these are Celltop-designed widgets and some are third-party applications, so the design experience here will vary… don’t expect a seamless software experience, or for the different applications to provide consistent functionality.

In closing I have to add that I honestly don’t intend to bash Alltel or be overly persnickety, but I could write a book on the user experience issues I endure as a mobile phone customer. Between the web site as a potential customer, the login web site as a user, and the phone software itself (with dozens of third-party apps) there are many usability issues I wish I had the influence to correct.

Since I don’t work for Alltel and cannot make any improvements to your user experience, if you still have unanswered questions about using Celltop on your Alltel phone, please let me know and I’ll try to find the answer for you!

Handy Links
>> Celltop Cells for Sale
>> FAQ & Feedback
>> Alltel Axcess Services
(information about available Axcess applications and pricing available here)