Technically, I expect tools will move away from web technologies-they were a convenient shortcut to get off the ground, but as more people begin prototyping and more complex things get built, the web’s limitations will start to show. When you look at the market for design tools and all of the activity in it lately, all of the new indie products, what do you find notable and how do you think the market will evolve? These user studies are the single biggest reason why Principle turned out the way it did. This was painful, but it was a priceless reality check for all my designs. After development started, I would meet with designers every one to two weeks and silently watch them use Principle.
What turned out to be most helpful was to have them talk me through some of their recent work-you start to see how their tools affect what kind of work they produced. I did quite a few interviews with designers in the Atlanta area. I thought it would be nice for designers to design touch interfaces on a touch screen, and that complex behavior was what designers really wanted to do, if only there was an interface for it. When Principle started, it was an iPad app for visual programming. Is the product that shipped the product you imagined at the outset?ĭefinitely not. People have described Principle as: “An easier After Effects!,” “Keynote for designers!,” “Quartz Composer without the mind-blow!” So the way Principle fits into your toolbox largely depends on your background. Once you do have something you like, it’s easy to explain the idea by sharing the Principle file.Īs for what it might replace or complement: that’s a tough question because designers come from many disciplines-each of which has different approaches for animation and interaction. You never know if you’re onto something until you see it. Principle is primarily a tool to help designers think about and try ideas. How does Principle fit into a designer’s toolbox? What does it replace, and what does it complement?
Creative tools are a big project, so I’ll be growing the team now that Principle has launched. I hired contractors for bits and pieces, but most of the work was done alone. I left Apple a little over two years ago and spent a month or so thinking about what I wanted to do next-a prototyping tool was at the perfect intersection of my skill set, interests, and market need. I asked him a few questions about the launch over email. Hooper left the Bay Area in 2014 and moved home to Atlanta, where he was able to focus on creating Principle as a small, independent concern. It’s the brainchild of Daniel Hooper, a former Apple engineer who worked on core photography apps for iOS and OS X. Last week saw the widely praised release of Principle, an OS X app that allows users to design and animate anything from multi-screen flows to individual interactions and behaviors.
#Principle mac app software#
The steady stream of new UX prototyping software continues.