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Namasketch — mini yoga session for beginners, told in doodles(namasketch.com)

over 5 years ago from Pablo Stanley, Design at Blush

  • Pablo StanleyPablo Stanley, over 5 years ago

    I know this looks like it has NOTHING TO DO WITH DESIGN! But, before you raise your pitchforks, let me share with you the tools I used to create this little app with almost no code.

    HTML5

    I used Hype 3 to put together all the interactions, audio, animations, scenes, etc. and export it everything as HTML5. This app is awesome. It’s a mix of Flash and Keynote but in HTML5. It has a graphic interface where you can manipulate all types of layers (text, basic vector shapes, images.) You can animate anything using a timeline, pretty similar to After Effects. You can make buttons, add HTML widgets, embed a CSS sheet, use video and audio, create different scenes, create different designs for different breakpoints, use auto-layout, and even use physics.

    You can create interactions adding “actions” to any layer. For example, you can create a rectangle and then add an action where “On Mouse Click” it “Start Timeline” or “Run Javascript” or “Play Sound,” etc., etc.

    I have used this app in the past only for prototyping—this is the first time I use it as a final product. The code is not beautiful, and it places everything in an absolute position. But if you want to create something small by yourself (without the need of coding), I highly recommend it.

    ANIMATED DOODLES

    Photoshop and Adobe Draw. I drew most of the poses on an iPad app called Adobe Draw. This app is great because you can create hand-drawn illustrations and export them as vectors (resolution-independent, baby!) I animated the doodles using the “Timeline” feature in Photoshop. I pretty much made a different drawing for every frame, just like you would make old-school animations, and then put them together turning on and off each layer on different keyframes. The squiggly lines look like that because each frame is drawn individually (so they’re not perfect) creating that effect. I made a live stream where I share my process, in case you’re interested!

    DESIGN

    Sketch! I made my wireframes and initial prototypes on Sketch, before starting to implement on Hype. I also made the icons on Adobe Draw, then sent them to illustrator, and then copied it to Sketch. Once in Sketch, I exported them to SVG so that I could use them on Hype

    SOUND

    First, I have to thank Gabi Fox for helping with her energetic and soothing voice. You rock! I used a Zoom audio interface and a Shure SM7B to record the audio. Then I cleaned up the audio files with Adobe Audition. And finally, I used Adobe Premiere to edit them. I know “But Premiere is for Video!” I’ve been using Premiere for editing stuff for the longest time, so editing audio is pretty much the same. You can export every composition as an MP3 file too

    MUSIC

    I used Ableton Live to create the musical UI elements. I made the bell sound with a mix of Native Instrument’s FM8 and a Microkorg. I made a library for UI sounds that you can use on your projects!

    CSS STYLE SHEET

    I love Sublime! This text editor is super simple out-of-the-box, but you can add packages to it that can make it powerful. My favorites are: ColorPicker, HTML-CSS-JS Prettify, Nodejs, and SideBarEnhancements.

    USER TEST FEEDBACK

    I mostly just asked friends to test the app for me. Some were on Slack video chats, some on Google Hangouts, some texting back and forth using SMS and FB’s messenger, some in-person—the old-school way. I took all of my notes on Evernote, and I would keep a checklist of bugs and usability stuff.

    That’s it. I hope this is helpful. I’m down to answer any questions!

    12 points