Prototype Presentation Preview

Yesterday I published an article showing off some of the interesting prototypes that people have made with Precursor, a prototyping app I'm designing.

It's no longer just a minimum viable product to a fun idea—Precursor has been refined into a real solution, to real problems, and for real users.

These user-made prototypes show how far we've come, and I wanted to showcase them in a way that reflected their significance.

First, we finished building a tool to study these types of prototypes. We've been using it internally to replay documents as animations, and yesterday we released it as a product feature along with the article. These showcased prototypes became ideal demonstrations for the feature's usefulness. Watching them get built offers a unique perspective on the discipline required to make such effective designs.

From there, I designed the visual presentation for the documents. To encourage people to interact I borrowed an interface pattern from the app itself—a large Material-esque shadow effect that responds to user input. We use this in the main menu to make it clear that the user can return to their ideas at anytime. I wanted a similar relationship between these previews gifs and actual documents that lay behind them.

Finally, we honored each document that was featured, by immortalizing them onto t-shirts. Being a bootstrapped startup, it's what we can afford, but it also feels appropriate. Our minimal aesthetic just happens to lend itself nicely to t-shirt graphics. In fact, once I received the initial test shirt, I loved it.

If you're curious what the final results look like, I encourage you to visit the article—Ideas are made with Precursor.

Special thanks to @Eddie Lobanovskiy, @Damir Hotlovac, @Fatih Turan, @Justin Yonk, @Ken Seals, @Mathieu Croset ✓, and Peter Berg for letting me use their incredible prototypes!