Integrating Effective Prototyping Into Your Design Process

Integrating Eective Prototyping into Your Design Process Fred Beecher, Senior User Experience Consultant Monday, March 23, 2009

Monday, March 23, 2009

The Dimensions of Fidelity “Production Ready” Prototype Paper JPG Image Mapped HVF Interactive Prototype JPGs (“Slap & Prototype Map”) Visual Fidelity Paper WF Clickable LVF Interactive Prototype Wireframe Prototype Proof of Concept Wireframe Image Mapped Sketch Sketches Scans Functional Fidelity Monday, March 23, 2009

Two Additional Dimensions of Fidelity Technical Fidelity • “Production-ready” prototypes • Your prototype is either production-ready or it ain’t PROBLEMS • Constrains UX design concepting • Expensive & time-consuming WHEN CAN IT WORK? • You have mad coding skillz • Your organization has mad resources Monday, March 23, 2009

Two Additional Dimensions of Fidelity Fidelity of Content • Your prototype is NOT just interaction • Content plays a large role in testing, and testing is the PROBLEMS • You can’t have a prototype without content • Testing prototypes with crappy content will give you crappy data YOUR PROTOTYPES MUST CONTAIN PLAUSIBLE CONTENT IF YOU WANT TO GET GOOD DATA OUT OF TESTING THEM Monday, March 23, 2009

“There is no such thing as high or low ﬁdelity, only appropriate ﬁdelity.” - Bill Buxton Monday, March 23, 2009

What LVF/LFF Prototypes Are Good For Discovering missing functionality Finding problems with a workﬂow Separating good UX design concepts from... less good ones Getting preliminary consensus on a UX design direction: “Is this what you mean?” Monday, March 23, 2009

What LVF/HFF Prototypes Are Good For Enabling the use of user testing as a design tool Proof-of-Concept testing of isolated interactions Enabling remote prototype testing Validating UX design direction with stakeholders Validating UX implementation of requirements with stakeholders Supplementing printed documentation for development teams Monday, March 23, 2009

Monday, March 23, 2009

What HVF/LFF Prototypes Are Good For Discovering any usability problems introduced by the visual design Finding problems with a workﬂow when testing with non-savvy user groups Iterating through multiple form factor concepts when designing physical interactive devices Monday, March 23, 2009

What HVF/HFF Prototypes Are Good For Enabling user testing as a design tool when integrating new functionality into established systems User testing with non-savvy user groups Supplementing printed documentation for OFFSHORE development teams “Production-ready” prototypes, by deﬁnition, require both high visual and functional ﬁdelity Wowing stakeholders into submission Monday, March 23, 2009

Integrating Prototyping Into Your Process • Start Small – Maybe even just a tiny, cheap little proof-of-concept • Know what questions your prototype must answer – Early in design, the questions will likely be more structural – Later on, the questions will relate more to usability • Choose a level of fidelity that will answer them – Lo fi is generally better at addressing big structural issues – Hi fi is generally better at addressing usability issues • Choose a fidelity-appropriate methodology & test • Evangelize, evangelize, evangelize! Monday, March 23, 2009

Design Context: Corporate-Agile-Mature UX • Develop the detailed scenarios you want to test • Sketch two or three of your UX design concepts into simple prototypes & test to choose one • Build a small interactive prototype of the critical interactions & proof-of-concept test them • Work with the team’s prototyper develop a ﬂeshed-out production-ready prototype & test it too Monday, March 23, 2009

Design Context: Corporate-Waterfall- New UX • Develop detailed scenarios you want to test • Build an interactive prototype & walk through it with project stakeholders • If possible, test that same prototype with users • Simultaneously walk through the printed documentation & the prototype when handing it o to developers • If possible, generate an annotated prototype for developers’ reference Monday, March 23, 2009

Design Context: Consulting/Agency • Develop the detailed scenarios you want to test • Sketch two or three of your UX design concepts into simple prototypes & test to choose one – Walk through it with the client to validate your direction • Build a small interactive prototype of the critical interactions & proof-of-concept test them – Walk through it with the client to validate your direction • Flesh out the interactive prototype & test – Walk through it with visual designers & developers, along with paper documentation Monday, March 23, 2009

Design Context: Hardware Device • Develop the detailed scenarios you want to test • Do as many iterations of a low functional fidelity prototype as you can – They may need to have high visual fidelity if you’re not designing for a tech-savvy audience • Do a high-functional fidelity prototype to supplement the printed documentation you provide to the engineers • Proactively keep yourself involved once they start building hardware prototypes Monday, March 23, 2009

Thanks! Questions? Fred Beecher fbeecher@gmail.com @fred_beecher Monday, March 23, 2009

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Integrating Effective Prototyping Into Your Design Process

by Fred Beecher on Mar 23, 2009

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