Sketching basics

A sketch captures the essential aspects of an idea visually. When you sketch, you should not aim for precision, completeness, or beauty. Your main focus should be on simplicity and clarity. You should express the central aspects of how your idea works in the clearest way.

Sketching is different from drawing or painting. You only need a very small set of basic elements to communicate your ideas effectively:

• Simple shapes: Lines, squares, circles, and triangles are enough to communicate most ideas. Combining these simple shapes, you can recreate most user interface components well enough to be recognizable.
• Text: Headings, labels, or paragraphs help to exemplify the content users will find. Adjusting the style of the text--text size, color, use of bold face or underline--will help to communicate the purpose of such text.
• Annotations: Arrows and text notes can help to describe possible interactions, transitions, or relevant details that need further clarification.
• Shadows: The use of shadows or filling lines can help to clarify the spatial relations of some components. Buttons are often presented as raised, whereas input boxes are presented as embossed. Shadows are only optional elements to be used if they add clarity and take little time.

With these basic ingredients, you can pick your favorite mobile app and capture an essential part of it. This can be a good practice to improve your sketching skills. Describing solutions that do not exist yet presents some other challenges that we will address later in this chapter.