Three links to the 37Signals “getting real” philosophy
These are articles that I’ve often spoken of, and often copied the URLs to emails that I’ve sent to others, so I shall record them here, so in the future I shall only need to point people here.
“We should build a house!”
“Yes! A house!”
But what kind of house do they mean?
The interface as a spec: including stories inline:
Sometimes designing the static states takes more time, and doesn’t quite represent reality, as well as a brief note about how the functionality works. The key is to make this note in context — right next to the interface element its describing. The combination of real visuals and a brief contextual note shrink the chances of misunderstanding to near zero.
Designing an interface: from sketch to screen
The screen mostly followed the sketch, except for the controls in the upper right and the description field. That’s fine, because at step two those details Didn’t Matter. Coding the real thing, I found room for all three of those pieces in the top-right, and that worked better.
Thinking and sketching took me 10 minutes. Creating the real screen and updating the code can take two or three hours. That lopsided pattern, with short make-believe-time on the left and long build-time on the right, is always a good sign that you’re making progress. Ideas and paper are necessary, but they’re destined for the trash bin. So burn through them and focus on the good stuff.