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How I see a lesson from Flash holds a future of prototyping

Ryu Sakai
UX Collective
Published in
11 min readMar 25, 2020
A collage of major prototyping tools’ logos placed on a rough timeline from 1987 to 2018.
Modern-day prototyping/authoring tools

PPrototyping is critical part of UX process. Obviously, prototyping tools play significant roles, and we have seen various software programs throughout the past decades. Among these tools, I would like to focus on Adobe Flash (now called Animate), and share what I learned from using it for years, and why I think a lesson from Flash holds a future of prototyping. Let me dive in.

History of modern-day prototyping

When we think about the future of prototyping, it’s worth looking back in a history. A chart below shows major prototyping and authoring tools from 1987 to 2020. On the bottom, I added key product/service launches that impacted the world, which provides an overall historical context. The list is not exhaustive, but you get the idea.

A timeline of each prototyping tool’s launch and discontinuation year. Major product launches were also included for contexts
History of prototyping / authoring tools, 1987–2020

The rise and fall of prototyping tools have always been heavily influenced by the underlying technology trends, which can be divided roughly into 4 eras; 1) Multimedia Era, 2) Flash Era, 3) Web 2.0 Era, and 4) Mobile Era.

Strictly speaking, Microsoft Powerpoint, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, PDF are not prototyping tools. But in…

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Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Ryu Sakai

An experienced UX designer, who wants to help aspiring to-be-UX designers who don’t know where to start. Ryu is a founder of https://products.realworldux.co.

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