As we start work on our eReader for Herbert Meyer and his essay How to Analyze Information, we'll have some inside posts as to what it's like to work on an iPhone application. Here's our first post on app production about mocking up your application before you begin work.
From what we've read about so far, it doesn't seem like all or even most indie developers go through a significant mock-up stage before beginning production. While we don't have a lot of experience and authority to tell those people that they are wrong, we do feel as if it is a big mistake to jump into a project without a fair amount of mock-up time first.
We typically spend a couple hours minimum on each mock-up we do, even if it's just for a test application. This does result in a lot of idle time sitting around a computer screen, but it saves a lot of time and heartache in the long run.
We use some iPhone stencils and applications like Photoshop to help put together our mock-ups. We go into pretty extensive detail and our mocks look a lot like a finished product. Here's an example mock we make up to use on our Twitter page. Again, none of this done on an actual iPhone.
It may seem silly to go into such detail, but you can't even imagine the time it saves during the development process, even on super simple applications. When Mike goes to program, he has an image he can look at and follow for more or less all of the development process and we don't have to waste time discussing while he is coding. It also helps us to work remotely if need be, since Mike can work at his house or on his own and doesn't need a designer sitting next to him incase he has any questions. Through our work the last month or so on test applications, we've found our mock-ups to be fairly indiciative of what our final product will look like. Obviously we see some changes as we go through the development process, which is entirely to be expected. It would be a bad practice if we were not to consider alternatives to the mock-up midway through the development process if Mike was to learn a new trick or find some design idea to be a huge headache.
So, moral of today's story? Mock up everything you plan on doing with iPhone development. Even if you work by yourself on every single aspect of the project, still go through the process of putting your thoughts onto paper in some fashion. Even if you just mock-up your application with a piece of paper and a pencil, it will be unbelievably helpful once you're mid-project and you want to look back and what you plan on creating. It also helps you map out your attack plan for development so that you don't get to the end of the project and realize you missed a key feature you wanted to implement as well.
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