Tool Request: UI Mockups for Multimodal Design

Tools
#1

I’m currently working on a project that’s distinctly multimodal, and particularly combines audio, haptic, and visual cues. So far, people have some rough visual mockups, but they’re just that: visual. We also have notes off to the side describing what audio we need to use, but it’s really becoming separate “visual icons”, “audio icons” and “haptic icons”, when they’re going to be played together

What wireframe prototyping software best supports audio? I figure, with some of my background in haptics, that I can actually cheat it a bit and make audio handle double-duty for haptics by isolating the low-range features, but I need something that’ll be able to handle audio files for interaction testing.

(Also: hey, I’m still alive!)

#2

Any GUI/drag-and-drop web editor works well for this (Dreamweaver, Webflow maybe), even for mobile. You could play an audio clip tied to the button being clicked.

For prototyping tools, I’m not sure, in the past I never had luck with any of the newer ones handling even medium complex interactions well. The ones that generate HTML were usually the best and may have the ability to add custom JavaScript or an event action like the above link example. Axure RP does in Axure Cloud, you can add a “Plugin” and then put in a Javascript event tied to the button ID. I was able to use that in the past for faking mobile audio alerts.

I like the many prototyping tools out there, but for projects that are long-term I style up a CSS framework/template for them. Axure RP’s handled 80% of my mobile and web use cases (healthcare/enterprise applications). Something like Bootstrap etc with the customized styles. It can handle more advanced projects and can become a true design library for the dev teams. There’s probably some “no code” application tools out there that could make this easier and be better than existing prototyping tools.

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