I’ve learned a lot making apps for big companies, mostly about process: how a good continuous integration process works, how code reviews can be productive (or not productive), how to break a big app into smaller components so lots of people work on related things at the same time.

Still, it’s helpful to do something fresh and new 100% on your own from time to time. Doing something new all your own, you get to try any architecture you want, go all in on the latest asynchronous programming techniques, fully embrace the amazing new(ish) declarative/reactive view layer, and even try out a new CI framework to two.

But the most fun part of all is developing the idea of your app. What does your app do? How exactly does it work from a user perspective? And what do the screens look like in detail?

👉This time around, I’m prototyping my new app idea on my phone so that I can get a feel for how it works in my hands before writing all that code. ^

I tried out a few prototyping tools. After looking at some basic options and some pretty involved options (arguably too involved), I landed on a pretty “sketchy” Mac app that handles full-on detailed UI design and kind of does mobile prototypes through its “mirroring” iOS app. Perfect. 👌

👉 Sketch | mirroring app

I will say that Figma looks pretty promising as well. What nudged me over to Sketch was Apple’s Sketch-compatible design resources. There are some third-party iOS design resources for Figma, but I’d rather go with Apple’s official offering. Sorry, Figma. 🤷🏻‍♂️

So my new design process is this, now that I’ve finally learned Sketch:

Rough sketch on paper ➡ realistic visual design in Sketch ➡ prototype on a phone ➡ code

My instinct is to talk about the app itself while it’s in progress, but sorry… that’s top secret for now. 🕵️‍♀️