How to Make a Mockup of an App? Try PowerPoint!
You don’t need to buy expensive design tools like Photoshop to create a mockup of your app. The tool you need you probably already have: PowerPoint!
Posted on February 11, 2013 by Bobby Gill+ in Process
One of the first things you want to do to develop your app idea is to create a mockup of the app. A mockup, as the name implies, is a basic visual prototype of the look and feel of your app. Mockups serve two purposes, one is to test the core concepts of your app and the second is to serve as a blueprint to use when working with developers to build your app. A good mockup will lay out what every screen in your app looks like down to the buttons, colors and fonts and will illustrate how someone moves through the app to complete basic tasks. Building a mockup is actually quite simple and you don’t need to run out and buy any specialized software like Photoshop or Balsamiq to do it. No my friends, the tool you need you probably already have: Microsoft Powerpoint (or alternatively Apple’s Keynote)
Check out this video from Windows8Templates.com that shows you how to use PowerPoint to create a mockup of a Windows 8 app:
Yes, PowerPoint does have some use beyond boring hoards of office workers on a daily basis. All you need to start is to buy a template file for the particular smartphone platform you want to model your app on. These templates come with a whole whack of UI controls, buttons, panels, icons, etc… that replicate all the major parts of an app. You then can create a mockup of your app by simply copying and pasting these objects from the template file into your PowerPoint file.
By using PowerPoint built-in layout tools along with a template you will be able to create a realistic mockup of your app that you can either market test with your customer, or hand over to a developer to spec and quote for you.
You can purchase and download templates for iOS and Android platforms at Keynotopia, or if you want to mock up a Windows 8 app from Windows8Templates.com.
Bobby Gill is Editor-in-Chief of IdeaToAppster.com, author of "Appsters: A Beginner's Guide to App Entrepreneurship" and the founder of Blue Label Labs, a mobile development lab based in New York and Seattle. In addition to building its own apps, Blue Label Labs provides design and engineering services to mobile app clients across the world. Prior to starting Blue Label Labs, Bobby spent 4 years at Microsoft as a Program Manager within the Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) product group. During this time, Bobby served as an engineering and architectural lead for the FIM server specializing in database and web service design. After Microsoft, Bobby worked as a Summer Associate at McKinsey & Co. where he was part of a service operations enhancement program within the high-tech industry. Bobby holds a Bachelor of Mathematics specializing in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo and a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia Business School.
-
mcrisp
