links for 2010-03-14

"When using a Paper Prototype, the throughput of scribbled paper is enormous even with the classical GUIs. The more dynamic some dialog is, the more different parts need to be prepared in various states and locations (depending on the fragmentation of the paper screen). With gestures on a touchscreen, the user needs to be able to express them on the screen. Most touchscreen interfaces heavily depend on the (simulated) physical interaction between the fingers and some drawn “objects” on the interface. This is the moment when Paper Prototyping falls short of resembling the real interaction. You just can’t fiddle that fast with all the paper shreds."

incorporates sound

much more finished prototype

A video of a paper prototyping exercise of animation

"The desk is the stage, and the action is framed inside a print-out of an empty browser to give it context. I wanted it to look so simple and sketchy that nobody could possibly confuse it with a design, so I used paper, card and Post-Its to build up the scene and laid a sheet of acetate on top, which I wrote on with OHP pen. There’s a rather crude cardboard mouse-cursor and a rotating paper ‘in progress’ icon.

There are 8 animations in total, each of which illustrates part of a user journey through the form and highlights complex validation behaviour I’d found tricky to explain. I was a bit worried that the developers might think it was gimmicky, but the novelty wore off quickly and they rapidly moved on to focus on the content. Because the videos illustrated a lot of the main ideas, everyone involved was spared long, tedious meetings talking about display conditions and validation behaviour. This was a big win."

"Ondřej has created a paper cutout for this sketches that allows him to reuse parts of his interface by means of overlapping screens."

"The animated portions of the prototype are difficult to demonstrate. Our current methods of showing animations are: using icons connected to strips of paper that the wizard could pull and push, drawing with a marker on transparency, using a magnet to move a metal icon around. While these were fun to work with, considering other methods of simulating animation would make the user trials go smoother."