Kevin Lynch Archives

It sounds like CRC card sessions for UI:s. See:

http://c2.com/doc/oopsla89/paper.html

No kidding! Yes, I can definitely see the benefits here given my own experience in waiting for UI to get back with PShop embellished specs, etc. The piece you link to on this story is excellent. Thanks for pointing this out.

Just a thought but this could be taken a step further with tablet pc's etc you could use Flash to quickly draw the interface and interactions and then get it to create UI components from the interface you have drawn. Just an idea :)

As one whose professional life revolves around the advancement of "web design" ... the two things related to the job that don't cause repetitive stress injuries are rewiring things underneath my desk and paper prototyping.

I've rarely participated on a project where paper prototyping has been given any more respect than chickenscratch or scribbling ... (my fault for not realizing it... it's also just sooo "low tech"!) Too bad because it's the best thing about what I do.

Your "group prototyping" thought looks like an amazingly useful process and is practically disguised as a birthday party game. (pin the widget on the donkey?) What meeting wouldn't be more fun with scissors, glue, and crayons?

You know they have monitors coming out in the next few years that resemble thick construction paper. One day you're paper prototypes might just make it into production!

Look forward to seeing more on this topic in your blog.

sjf

"Just a thought but this could be taken a step further with tablet pc's etc you could use Flash to quickly draw the interface and interactions and then get it to create UI components from the interface you have drawn. Just an idea :)"

Andrew S, that's not nearly fast or cheap enough! :-) I sometimes think that even paper isn't a low-tech enough medium for this exercise.

The key point about paper prototyping is that you should be able to make changes instantly. The user should be able to grab a marker or post-it and say, "look. Make it like *this*." You have a conversation on paper, and draw, cut, tape, and fold as you go.

I've tried making quickie HTML mockups so interfaces appear more "realistic" or "polished." You see a couple of things: users who go "oh, I guess this is the new interface then. Well, it's fine. Whatever." Or, you suddenly realize you're scribbling down tons of notes because you can't capture your user's ideas any other way, and the interface itself is basically ignored.

The best article on this is Mark Rettig's "Prototyping for Tiny Fingers" which is now stupidly available only by subscription to the ACM archives although if you ask a UI designer they might mail you a copy! :-)

it's great we can view you finally working ;-)

I've been messing w/ paper prototyping for a couple of years now and we've discovered it's also useful for requirements elicitation. If you encourage the users to play with you, you'll find they may put a sticky note "button" or "dialog box" someplace where you were least expecting it, to do something that turns out to be very important to them, but somehow hadn't come up before. We start the ball rolling by writing a use case, then prototyping the use case. This seems to give some structure to the engagement.

Andrew Stopford said:
"Just a thought but this could be taken a step further with tablet pc's etc you could use Flash to quickly draw the interface and interactions and then get it to create UI components from the interface you have drawn. Just an idea :)"

I've been working on a similar idea for the last 10 years. Bringing the advantages of paper-based prototyping to the electronic realm. Take a look at DENIM (http://guir.berkeley.edu/denim), a sketch-based web design & prototyping tool that is targeted at tablet computers.

James