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Professional development/Design thinking/Software prototyping and tools (view source)
Revision as of 20:23, 2 October 2020
, 20:23, 2 October 2020no edit summary
Many of us (TAs/PMs and students) struggle with the concept of testing software or just how to prototype software. It is less concrete than physical prototyping and is harder to wrap your head around. You might say that you can’t test or can’t prototype something because it is software...think again!
We’ll compare it to a typical mechanical design cycle (not considering client involvement):
{| class="wikitable"
|'''Design step'''
|'''Mechanical'''
|'''Software'''
|-
|Conceptual designs
|Hand/computer drawn sketches
|Hand/computer drawn sketches
|-
|Preliminary design
|Rough CAD assemblies
|Wireframe designs/flowchart
|-
|Detailed design
|Fully defined CAD
|High fidelity mockup/Initial coded software
|-
|Simulation/testing
|CAD force/fluid simulations
|UX simulation
|-
|Prototype 1
|Manufactured part(s)
|Functional coded software
|-
|Refined testing
|Testing under load against metrics
|Sub functions to test behavior of specific features against metrics
|}
Here is a list of tools for software prototyping that could be useful: https://blog.prototypr.io/top-20-prototyping-tools-for-ui-and-ux-designers-2017-46d59be0b3a9
In our GNG1103/2101 classes the cycle looks a little differently where you might have:
{| class="wikitable"
|'''Design step'''
|'''Mechanical'''
|'''Software'''
|-
|Conceptual designs
|Hand drawn sketches
|Hand drawn sketches
|-
|Detailed design
|Detailed sketches of sub-assemblies with some analysis
|Wireframe designs/flowchart
|-
|Prototype 1
|Cardboard prototype
|High fidelity mockup/Initial coded software
|-
|Simulation/testing
|Functional testing of prototype against metrics
|UX simulation against metrics
|-
|Prototype 2/3
|Assembled and functional prototype
|Functional software
|}
=== Sharing ===
When working in a team you will definitely want to share your files to work on things together. In mechanical [https://grabcad.com/workbench GrabCad Workbench] is a popular tool but in software [https://github.com/ GitHub] is definitely an industry standard.
Here is an introduction to GitHub https://guides.github.com/activities/hello-world/