thoughts...

prototype notes

What Do Prototypes Prototype?

What is a prototype?

• A prototype can really be anything that furthers the understanding of the proposed/potential design solution.
• Can vary from low to high fidelity and be represented in any medium that is applicable
• Is a tool for the designer to get more insight into the proposed solution/interaction while the design is still in development. It helps shape the design in a more informed manner.
• They can be referred to by different names, i.e. versions, iterations, tests, etc.
• Prototyping is often a concept associated with computer development, but has broader use that can be applied to almost any type of development.

Why prototype?

• Unless you are a mind reader or have mastered time travel, you never know how your audience will react to your design
  
• Because the experience of a viewer/user/player/etc cannot ever be completely predicted,
• Design decisions can be based on the experience of the prototype in progress rather than speculation.
• Can cut costs and time in development, but more importantly will help ensure that the interaction you are proposing is well received by your intended audience.
• Prototyping is a way to test specific elements of a larger or more complex system.
• Prototyping is a good way to solve problems, but is especially valuable to interactive designers because it encourages iterative design.

Iterative design

• Test; analyze; refine. And repeat.
• Iterative design is a design methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining a work in progress. In iterative design, interaction with the designed system is used as a form of research for informing and evolving a project, as successive versions, or iterations of a design are implemented.
• The iterative design process is especially important to interactive designers because it is impossible for the designer to fully anticipate the interaction that will occur in advance.
• The prototype is tested, revisions are made, and the project is tested once more. In this way, the project develops through an ongoing dialogue between the designers, the design, and the testing audience.

Audiences

• Users need to be defined in order to design effectively and get good feedback
• Team – discuss other design directions with people who are familiar with the project
• Organizations – project managers, clients, professors
• There are several distinct audiences to discuss a prototype with.
• It’s important to explain to the audience what the prototype is testing, what question it is trying to answer.
• It’s important to consider the background of the audience you’re showing the prototype to. A professor may react very differently than a client. Often a designer or someone who better understands the prototyping process can overlook rough aesthetics in a prototype, where a client may have a harder time.
• Clarifying what aspects of a prototype correspond to the eventual artifact – and what doesn’t – is a key part of successful prototype.

Low vs. high fidelity

• Two related terms are used in this context: “resolution” and “fidelity”. We interpret resolution to mean “amount of detail”, and fidelity to mean “closeness to the eventual design”. It is important to recognize that the degree of visual and behavioral refinement of a prototype does not necessarily correspond to the solidity of the design, or to a particular stage in the process.
• Low fidelity prototypes are quick and simple, usually rough and often concentrate more on concept rather than aesthetics
• High fidelity is usually more aesthetically and technically refined. Closer representation of the proposed solution

Prototype Triangle

• Prototypes are often built with an emphasis towards a certain question about the proposed solution. The question being asked will determine what type of prototype you are making.
• It is important to examine solution you are proposing when choosing what type of prototype you are making and to what degree of fidelity
• Clarifying what aspects of a prototype correspond to the eventual design—and what don’t—is a key part of successful prototyping.
• The triangle is drawn askew to emphasize that no one dimension is inherently more important than any other.

Role

• Refers to questions about the function that an artifact serves in a user’s life.
• Usually helpful when designing something that would be a new item in the users life. It helps test the way a new design may be useful to the user.
• The question a role prototype may try to answer is what that new role should be and what features are needed to support it.
• Role prototypes are those which are built primarily to investigate questions of what an artifact could do for a user. They describe the functionality that a user might benefit from, with little attention to how the artifact would look and feel, or how it could be made to actually work.

Look & Feel

• Denotes questions about the concrete sensory experience of using an artifact—what the user looks at, feels and hears while using it.
• Look and feel prototypes are built primarily to explore and demonstrate options for the concrete experience of an artifact. They simulate what it would be like to look at and interact with, without necessarily investigating the role it would play in the user’s life or how it would be made to work.
• Designers make look and feel prototypes to visualize different look and feel possibilities for themselves and their design teams.
• They ask users to interact with them to see how the look and feel could be improved.
• They also use them to give members of their supporting organization a concrete sense of what the future artifact will be like.
• More focus is placed on the aesthetics and ergonomics.

Implementation

• Refers to questions about the techniques and components through which an artifact performs its function—the “nuts and bolts” of how it actually works.
• Implementation prototypes are built primarily to answer technical.
• They are used to discover methods by which adequate specifications for the final artifact can be achieved—without having to define its look and feel or the role it will play for a user.
• Designers make implementation prototypes as experiments mostly for themselves and the design team.
• Implementation prototypes may be used to demonstrate to their organization the technical feasibility of the the design.
• Also good to get feedback from users on performance issues.

Integration Prototypes

• Such prototypes bring together the artifact’s intended design in terms of role, look and feel, and implementation.
• Integration prototypes are built to represent the complete user experience of an artifact.
• Integration prototypes are most able to accurately simulate the final artifact.
• They may need to be as complex as the final artifact
• They are the most difficult and time consuming kinds of prototypes to build.
• Designers make integration prototypes to understand the design as a whole, to show their organizations a close approximation to the final artifact.

Concluding Thoughts & Examples

• Define “prototype” broadly. Efficient prototypes produce answers to their designers’ most important questions in the least amount of time. Sometimes very simple representations make highly effective prototypes. We define a prototype as any representation of a design idea—regardless of medium; and designers as the people who create them—regardless of their job titles.

• • e.g. the pizza-box prototype of an architect’s computer [Example 10] and the storyboard notebook [Example 1].
    

• Build multiple prototypes. Since interactive artifacts can be very complex, it may be impossible to create an integrated prototype in the formative stages of a project. Choosing the right focused prototypes to build is an art in itself. Be prepared to throw some prototypes away, and to use different tools for different kinds of prototypes.
  • e.g. the 3D space-planning example[Examples 1, 2, and 3].
    

• Know your audience. The necessary resolution and fidelity of a prototype may depend most on the nature of its audience. A rough role prototype such as the interactive storyboard may work well for a design team but not for members of the supporting organization. Broader audiences may require higher-resolution representations. Some organizations expect to see certain kinds of prototypes:
  • e.g. [Example 4]
  • implementation designs are often expected in engineering departments
  • look-and-feel and role prototypes may rule in a visual design environment.
• Know your prototype and prepare your audience. Be clear about what design questions are being explored with a given prototype—and what are not. Communicating the specific purposes of a prototype to its audience is a critical aspect of its use. It is up to the designer to prepare an audience for viewing a prototype. Prototypes themselves do not necessarily communicate their purpose. It is especially important to clarify what is and what is not addressed by a prototype when presenting it to any audience beyond the immediate design team.