


Plan and scope your prototypes
Before I start a project, I decide a few things:What am I trying to accomplish?
Whether the prototype is for user testing or getting an idea conceptualized, what’s the minimum amount of work needed to get my idea across or to gain insight from testing? I’m not just being lazy ;) , this helps decide the necessary interactions, animations and screens that are needed.The more time you spend on your design the more you become attached. The more attached, the less likely you are to make the necessary changes.
Let’s use the prototype above as an example.
I was working on a new project and I wanted to explore what a card based layout with ‘shuffling’ animations in between states would look like. I sketched out the basic idea I wanted to make and used that as my starting point.
If you take a look at the finished prototype, only the first card is clickable in each step. There is no way to go back, no hover states, the content in the last screen isn’t complete, and it’s not nearly pixel perfect. None of those were necessary to get my idea across so I didn’t spend time including them. Framer can do just about anything, but that doesn’t mean you should try to do everything in your prototype.
Create UI flows using Andreas’ awesome ViewController module
You can use the ViewController Sketch plugin to create UI flows right in Sketch. Quickly turn your designs into clickable prototypes without having to write code.

Microinteractions

Sure, but why not just code?
As a front end developer, a lot of my projects will eventually end up with a coded prototype. I then use this prototype as a basis to write the front end code into the product, working along side engineering. So why not just code from the start? As I mentioned earlier, speed. I can quickly flesh out ideas that either I or another designer have already made by importing them from Sketch into Framer. It’s great for the early part of the design process where you’re exploring ideas and implementing feedback quickly. I can move pretty fast in code, but Framer takes it to the next level. Another reason is freedom. The simple fact that all of my code written in Framer will be thrown away is actually kind of great. It allows me to try things I wouldn’t otherwise and to be a bit more loose with my code. I can spend 15 minutes exploring an idea and then trash it without any remorse.Some tips & tricks
You (or the designer you’re working with) will probably have to set up Sketch files a bit differently.- Group your layers. Layers that are not in a group are ignored
- Avoid using spaces in your group names
- Hidden layers in Sketch are still imported, but their visibility will be set to false.
- Create simple, unique names for your artboards
- A minus (-) at the end of your artboard will exclude it from being imported into Framer

# Import file "design" sketch = Framer.Importer.load("imported/design@1x")Replace sketch with $, and you can now use $ to reference your Sketch layers, saving yourself from writing the word sketch hundreds of times:
$ = Framer.Importer.load("imported/design@1x")Use the ‘Normal Cursor’ snippet for a normal mouse pointer:
document.body.style.cursor = "auto"I import my designs at @2x and then scale them down, so they’re extra crisp. Note that this doesn’t seem to get along with the ViewController module mentioned above.
Framer.Device.contentScale = .5Sketch and Framer use different default artboards/devices for the web. Sketch uses 1440x1024 while Framer uses 1440x900. I opt for 1440x900. Don’t think you’re restricted to 900 pixels for height though, you can easily create scrollable pages in Framer. [-- This article was originally posted on Medium, republished with the author’s permission --]
Ross Fenrick
Front End Developer & Product Designer at IBM Design. Follow him on twitter @rossenfeffer
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