Notebook

Prototyping with Keynote

For my first iPhone app (which is yet to be released) I relied heavily on Apple’s Keynote application in order to build out very functional prototypes. I thought about writing up a blog post about it, but it seems as though several others have beat me to the punch. Here’s a good list of resources that sum up the process better than I could:

• How to prototype interactive iPad applications in 30 minutes using keynote – A very thorough article, as well as free Keynote templates.
• Keynote Wireframe Toolkit – A $12 library of frequently used web design elements.
• MockApp – A free library of iPhone UI elements.
• LiveView for iPhone & iPad – Not specific to Keynote per se, but very handy when used in unison.

The only suggestion that I might add (and one that helped speed up my workflow considerably) is to tweak the keyboard shortcuts of Keynote to make them behave more inline with Adobe’s apps. Shortcuts for resizing text and grouping objects is hardwired into my brain. By taking 10 minutes and changing those shortcuts in the system preferences, I’m sure I saved hours of frustration.