Lake

Mobile app designers aim to develop the best mobile software interfaces in the least amount of time, and rely on testing ideas with prototypes in lieu of building costly, fully functioning applications. Yet, designers cannot effectively prototype some complex app experiences, including augmented reality applications like Pokémon GO, because existing tools lack the needed features, or because prototyping in them is too time intensive to be feasible. To solve this problem, we introduce Lake, a mobile application prototyping tool that enables the creation of complex mobile applications with the same ease as paper prototyping. By leveraging the Wizard of Oz technique used in paper prototyping in our digital medium, we enable designers to prototype at the same low cost as paper, but at a much higher fidelity. Through a pilot study (N=6), we find that designers are able to gather organic in-context feedback from complex prototypes made with Lake.