Lecture 5: Prototyping Flashcards
What is a prototype?
A prototype is an instantiate of a design hypothesis, as well as a means to communicate ideas and intent, and a vehicle for evaluating design ideas.
One of the key aspects of a prototype is its fidelity, breadth and depth.
What is a low fidelity prototype?
A low fidelity prototype is a prototype which excludes details.
What is a high fidelity prototype?
A high fidelity prototype is a prototype which includes details and resembles more of a finished product.
What is breadth in relation to prototyping?
Breadth is the percentage (%) of features covered in the prototype - only enough features for certain tasks.
What is depth in relation to prototyping?
Depth is the degree of functionality covered in the prototype - limited choices, canned responses, no error handling etc.
Why do we use prototyping?
- Faster than coding
- No debugging
- Easier to change or throw away
What is paper prototyping?
Paper prototyping is a form of prototyping whereby you make use of interactive paper mockups which will involve sketches of screen appearance and paper pieces will show windows, menus, dialogue boxes.
The interaction in paper prototyping is natural in that pointing will resemble clicking and writing will resemble typing.
Through the use of paper prototyping a user can simulate a computer’s operation: putting down and picking up pieces, writing responses on the “screen”, describing effects that are hard to show on paper.
Paper prototyping tend to have low fidelity.
What are the four reason we use paper prototyping?
- Faster to build
- Easier to change
- Focuses attention on big picture
- Non-programmers can help
What are the five things you can learn from paper prototypes?
- Conceptual model
- Functionality
- Navigation and Task flow
- Terminology
- Screen Contents
What are the 5 things you CANNOT learn from paper prototypes?
- Look
- Feel
- Response Time
- Effectiveness of Feedback
- Exploration Behaviour
What is computer prototyping?
Computer prototyping is a form of prototyping whereby an interactive software simulation is created, which tends to have high fidelity in look and feel but has low fidelity in depth.
What are the NINE things you can learn from computer prototypes?
- Conceptual Model
- Functionality
- Navigation and Task Flow
- Terminology
- Screen Contents
- Screen Layout
- Colours, fonts, icons and other elements
- Interactive Feedback
- Efficiency issues
What are the two computer prototyping techniques?
- Form Builder
2. Wireframing
What is a form builder?
A form builder is a computer prototyping technique whereby real windows are assembled from a palette of widgets, such as buttons, text fields, labels etc.
What is wireframing?
Wireframing is a computer prototyping technique whereby a sequence of painted screenshots, sometimes connected by hyperlinks (hotspots)
