Sketch before prototype

And use a pen, not pencil.

Quick expansion on an earlier “iterate” tweet. Had to create a comparison type tool. Nothing too earth shattering, I was going to steal most of it from a competitor’s site but still had to figure out how to map my set of elements to that basic structure to see where the structure itself needed to change.

You’ve heard this one before. Start with pen and paper.

Looking back at the sketches I made before drawing the digital version of the wireframe you see that I basically explored 5 times before committing to a particular solution. Even those first couple of super simple, quickly abandoned options count. Just by starting to draw an initial structure you can already find out whether it will work or not.

Very low resolution and low friction makes it easy to discard and try again. Allow yourself a little room to explore multiple options, it’ll benefit the solution you come up with. Use a pen, not a pencil. Pencil has undo, pen has not. When making a mistake or changing your mind this forces you to start over and create a new, seperate idea. At this point this is a good thing: more material to compare and weigh your options.