A few minutes ago Apple has announced new iPad 3, with new procesors, memory and … Retina display with real HD resolution 
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We hope Hacienda HD with Michael Menzel hi res graphics (2048×1536) will look amazing and you will have a chance to see all those little detailes available on graphics.
Prototyping tutorial: a sketch of the main idea
basic materials
the elements
work in progress
...almost done
Our developers are developing Hazienda HD and I’m thinking about user friendly version of the manual.
I know the feeling, when I buy an app and I want to use it NOW. I have no time for such stupid and unimportant things as the manual or rules. C’mon, I want to run my app right now!
And that’s how the story of misuse goes. The customer doesn’t want to go through a manual and probably he will fail with the usage of an app very soon. I know it, because I have the same problem (as I am just ordinary specimen of humankind). If we are going to launch the-best-conversion-of-boardgame-into-iOS-ever, we must have easy to use and easy to understand manual. As we want our app to be language independent, this manual must be based on symbols and icons. And this is a challenge, believe me.
Today I have sketched three main rules, most of them in 2-3 versions. Within the next 3 days I’m going to prepare early sketches of all rules and confront them (sketches, I mean) with real users. These user will be my colleagues, with whom I will be on team-building even in the end of this week. I am very curious how they will find both my conception and its realization. One of my friend who often had played boardgames, found my conception very exciting. But she could be a kind of exception.
Today I’d like to present you the fist sketches of UI. They are both in Polish and in English, but I think the most important thing is that they just exist.
They had been sketched on A4 sheet of paper and scanned later.
Hazienda: the main screen
Configuration screen of lite version
Game configuration without inApp purchase
Game configuration with inApp purchase
When we have a final art game, I’m going to present side by side sketches and their execution.
Today I have prepared my first paper prototype
I decided to choose dimensions of cards and chits simply by sketching them and cutting out. Then I tried to make the basic interactions (tapping and dragging cards). It was a great fun, after all. I felt as I could play a real game, not just mockup.
The most difficult part of today activities was design of main layout of the app, because it has to provide many informations. But it must not be overcrowded. And the main board must be big enough to allow fingers for precise manipulation and positioning of cards and chits.
My first cardboard cards we bigger than final ones. In the real game (even on iPad), the bigger card, the better – just easier to grab, to hold, to drag and (at last but not least) much more prettier. But from the other side, the bigger cards make clutter and steal space. So I had to adjust their dimension in such a way, that main grid of our app could carry on. I used scissors and cut-by-cut I have found the best dimensions.
I just love Amazon Kindle (not reader itself, as I don’t have any), but a free application on iPad. Thanks to it, I can read. I have serious problem with reading classic version of books (I mean – paper books), as I am very weak, I can’t stand up and can’t hold book in steady position. Although iPad is rather heavy (it is, believe me!) it is also thin, and its thinness is a bless, as I can hold it and read. It’s screen is great as well, because I can read at night, when other patients sleep (and lamps are switched off).
Three days ago I bought a great book by Bill Buxton – “Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design“. This book was suggested to me by my much more experienced friend – Aga Szóstek. I haven’t finish it yet, but I find it as one of the most important book in my (professional) life. I hope to use approach proposed by Buxton in my work on mobile version of Hazienda. So we will not start with creating interfaces, but with creative thinking and prototyping.
Funny thing, soon I will appreciate my stay in hospital, because of change in my mindset.