Prototyping

Introduction

Prototyping is the chance to put your design into practice, and to test out ideas. If you are not sure which particular approach to take, mock it up and test it out on your users. Prototyping takes many forms, from rough sketches, through fully-drawn up paper prototypes, through to systems implemented on the computer. The Web provides a relatively easy prototyping environment, using HTML and cgi-scripts. Whilst you should use paper prototypes if they are approproate, you are expected to develop a full prototype system on the web eventually.

Paper Prototypes

Paper protoypes are a quick and easy way of testing preliminary design ideas on users. As well as a basic picture of the proposed interface, an additional set of pictures should also be provided that should enable you to run through a typical interaction with a prospective user, showing the display state when they perform certain actions to achieve a certain function.

Either do all of these designs separately on paper, using colour, shading and different viewpoints as appropriate, or utilise OHP's to overlay the basic design. Post-it notes can be usefully utilised to act as menus, dialogue boxes, etc.

Note that care should be taken in producing as clear a drawing as possible, preferably of the correct size. Clarity of line drawing and careful use of colour and shading will enhance its appearance considerably.

Questions to consider

Why does looking at the user information help you design?
What are the key issues in designing the interface for your system?