Tools

From Prototype Fund
Revision as of 16:48, 31 January 2024 by Marie-Lena (talk | contribs) (added tools from round 12 (yet unedited))
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Here you can find a list of tools and resources that were either recommended by projects during their funding period or mentioned during coaching sessions and calls. The list is in no way complete - feel free to send your tips to the program managers and we will add them to the list!

This list exists only in English as it doesn't make sense to translate a list ;)

Design/UI

See also: Tipps von geförderten Projekten, Users&Communication

Collaborative tools

  • UI-Design and Drawing
    • Penpot is a FOSS-alternative for Figma, a UI design tool
  • Whiteboard

Color

Fonts

Icons

Logo design

Prototyping

Accessibility

Redesign & Vorbereitungen für die Arbeit mit Designer*innen

Privacy-preserving measurements

Design Consolidation & Templates

Recruiting

Read & learn about Design/UI

Usability tests

In a usability test, potential users try to use an early version of your product to find potential problems that you need to fix.

  • The book "Rocket surgery made easy" (Steve Krug) describes usability testing (and recruiting for- and communication of it)
  • In general, it is better to do several smaller usability tests than a one or two big ones. Even small numbers of users can help to find problems. A classic article on this is "Why you only need to test with 5 users"
  • You do not need an almost finished product to test (the earlier the better, actually): You can evaluate a single feature (see tracer bullet development), a mockup (see penpot or figma) or a paper prototype.
  • The System Usability Scale (SUS) provides a “quick and dirty”, reliable tool for measuring the usability.

User research & journeys

Project management and planning

See also: Tipps von geförderten Projekten →Managing teams and projects, →Managing time

  • User Story Mapping is useful to plan which features to work on first. It can be useful alone, but it is particularly helpful for working in teams. There is also a book: User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton, 2014.

Tools

  • Wekan, Taiga and Kanboard are open source project management tools based on the idea of having virtual cards or sticky notes. If you already use an issue tracker or git hosting, a similar feature might be already implemented there.

Writing Code

  • Tracer Bullet Development is a method to get a working version of your software quickly. This allows to evaluate code architecture and user interface early. The method is described on this website, and more in-depth in the books "The Pragmatic Programmer" and "Ship it".
  • The Pragmatic Programmer (Thomas/Hunt, 2020) is a good general introduction to professional software development: Keeping code readable and easy-to-change, learning requirements, utilizing unit- and property tests, basics of securing applications. There is also a German translation.
  • Refactoring Guru has a lot of resources on common ways (patterns) of how to approach particular problems and how to improve existing code to make it easier to read and to change (refactoring).

Markdown & co

  • Markdown table generator
  • Pandoc converts various formats (like markdown, HTML, LaTex, docx,…) into each other. Great to build simple tool chains around documents.

Funding & Sustainability

List of funding opportunities apart from Prototype Fund

  • Crowdsupply is an open source platform for fundraising for hardware.
  • Numun Fund is a fund for feminist tech infrastructure in the Global South.
  • Open Collective is an open finances platform for communities.
  • OSS.Fund offers an overview on monetization platforms for open source creators.
  • Seedrs is a crowdinvesting funding platform (not open source).