• This Blog is Worth Following Because:

  - We only critique ourselves
  - There are no ads
  - We post max 2x a week
  - We practice what we preach
  
  So why not subscribe?

Writing on your magnets

I love using my GuiMags to sketch a design for a website, webApp or iPhone App. The reason I use them is because it speeds up the process.

When you use them as much as I do, you’ll find out that pretty soon you’ll walk into the following:

• A regular Dry-Erase marker can’t write much information on the GuiMags
• It’s hard not to wipe some of the writing off when you move the magnets around

To solve these problems easily, we have researched maybe a hundred pens and markers to see what works best and these are some of the conclusions we came to:

Use a fine tipped pen to fit more writing on your GuiMags

In order to fit more writing, don’t use a dry-erase marker to write on your magnets. Dry-erase markers don’t come with fine tips (If you find one, let me know, but to my knowledge, they don’t exist). There are plenty of pens that do come with fine tips though, but not very many that can write on magnet coating. That brings us to the second solution:

Use non-permanent pens to stop accidental erasing

These pens can write on magnets and don’t erase when your finger scrubs over them by accident. At the same time, when made a mistake or done with prototyping, you can use a slightly wet cloth to wipe them off. It’s that easy. In practice, I find I don’t have to wipe much, as the magnets need to move around more than changing the writing on them.

So there you have it. Use dry-erase markers for all the design and ’screen real-estate’ management on your whiteboard, but keep fine-tipped non-permanent pens handy to write on your UI controls.

Let me know what worked for you!

-Michal