Prototyping

It's easy to think that just because you are bootstrapping and writing *your* product you can get away with most if it in your head. That will work ... for the first few screens. You really need to work through these projects in the same way you would for a real paying customer.

With Puzil we hae done some extensive prototyping which has really helped put the bounds on what we should do. It's too easy to just gloss over "Management Pages" and later realise it's another 2 months work. Know what you have to do by investing in a prototype.

I use Visio and various stencils and followed the GUUUI blog here.

I recently helped out small company and one of the first things i changed when i went in was their prototyping. Of course, like a new Christmas present they went a bit mad prototyping everything to death, but they see the improvement and will learn how and when to use it.