Cheap and fast interactive web prototypes with Apple Keynote

Apple Keynote has become my favorite rapid prototyping tool for putting together iPad and web interfaces, and testing them with real users. It quickly replaced all my previous prototyping tools, and I am constantly discovering new tricks and hacks to prototype more productively.

First, let me thank you for all the feedback that you provided about the iPad keynote prototyping. I hope that the hundreds of developers who downloaded the theme template are finding it useful.

As promised in the last post, here are some additional assets (all created in Keynote) that I’ve been using to rapidly prototype web applications and demo them within my presentations.

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Once you download the Keynote template file ( link at the bottom of this post), install the file “Web Theme.kth” into <UserName> -> Library -> Application Support -> iWork -> Keynote -> Themes. Alternatively, you can double click the file to open it in Keynote, and choose file -> Save Theme. This will create a theme in Keynote that you can reuse to create new presentations, as shown below.


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Keynotopia enables you to use Apple Keynote or Microsoft PowerPoint to visualize, test and demo your application ideas quickly and cheaply, without doing any design work or writing a single line of code.

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5 Comments


  1. Caryn Leschen
    Jul 08, 2010

    I am really looking forward to using this. I am working on my first iPad application and I use Keynote a LOT on my Mac for clients…I love Keynote, it’s very easy to use. Looking forward to doing this!

    (reply)

  2. Scott Newson
    Jul 09, 2010

    I’ve just tried doing the same thing in OpenOffice presenter, and it works! Which is really exciting.
    (Maybe it works in powerpoint as well?)

    (reply)

    • Amir
      Jul 10, 2010

      @Scott – Yes, it does work in PowerPoint and OpenOffice. Posting some assets for these shortly ;)

      (reply)

      • hitesh
        Aug 13, 2010

        hi, can you tell me if the ipad prototyping libraby runs on windows vista… i need a prototyping tool to prototype a kiosk application(hotel check-in).


  3. How to prototype interactive iPad applications in 30 minutes or less using Apple Keynote | Amir Khella
    Jul 10, 2010

    [...] How to prototype desktop and web applications in 30 minutes using Apple Keynote [...]

    (reply)

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About Me



I am a entrepreneur, startup advisor, and user experience designer. Over the past three years, I've designed and helped launch more than a dozen startups, including DocVerse (Acquired by Google), Delve Networks (Acquired by LimeLight networks), TalentSpring (acquired by TalentTech), SideReel (acquired by Rovi), UStream, blist, and several others.
My latest product, Keynotopia, was launched in 3 hours, with a $47.50 budget, and had its first paying customer in the first 10 minutes.
Previously featured on Inc magazine, Entrepreneur magazine, Smashing Magazine, Swiss Miss, and the unofficial apple weblog.


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