OT-ish: Prototyping interface-heavy features for user testing

[Phil Darnowsky]

This is not exactly to do with Ruby, but it seems like something you
guys might have an opinion on--also, can anyone recommend a good
frontend-development list?

We're looking at adding a big new feature with a heavily dynamic UI. It
seems like a smart idea to get some endusers in front of it even before
we start writing the code that'll back it up, to avoid a lot of rework
if elements of it prove to be unsuitable.

What I'm considering is doing a static mockup in HTML with some simple
JS to bind it together--nothing actually gets persisted, but the look
and feel should mostly be in place. Does anyone have any practices to
recommend or avoid?

Thanks,
Phil

[Daniel Higginbotham]

I've really enjoyed using Middleman (http://middlemanapp.com/) for this kind of stuff. It lets you use haml, sass, and coffeescript right out of the box.

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[Phil Darnowsky]

That's clever, I'm gonna have to try that. Thanks!

--Phil

[Pascal Rettig]

Serve (https://github.com/jlong/serve) is also a nice option - and if
you're using Backbone, you can use something like Parse's
(https://parse.com/) JavaScript API to create and sync Models and
Collections in Backbone without needing to worry about a backend.

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[Chris Maxwell]

Hi Phil,

I just happen to be writing about exactly this. Here's some practices I
use/recommend:

https://github.com/maxxiimo/the-front-end-manifesto/blob/master/information-architecting.md

The chapter is about half finished.

Chris

[Phil Darnowsky]

Thanks dudes. I've got tests for both Minuteman and Serve going on, and
Chris' chapter bookmarked for some light reading over lunch.

--Phil