Friday, January 20, 2006
Paper Prototyping: When, Why, and Who?
For example, administrative personas - accountants and many managers - may respond better to concrete, higher-fidelity representations that show realistic data. For people that work with financial data, often the information design is much more important than the interaction (to their work). They may be less able, and even uncomfortable, trying to relate to the "blue sky" space of alternatives that paper protos imply. On the other hand, people that work with more abstractions in their jobs - people in sales, research, marketing - would be better candidates and could conceive of alternative interfaces and info display on the fly in a guided session.
- Task context: Most published studies focus on usability, not concept design. Locating general usability issues in the (same) interaction model is not hard for users to do. Its a critiquing task. But having people design and reflect on a contextual task from their own work, something of importance to them, may be more relevant, and more suitable to lo-fi prototyping as well. Give the participants something real to chew on, some context for their contributions.
Discussion points raised by others in the dialogue, my emphasis in bold. (No names shown for privacy, but these were all interesting, thoughtful comments:)
"While convincing management/clients of the need for proper user testing can be daunting and shortcuts welcome, using paper prototyping as a cheaper alternative seems a poor substitute for a real interactive experience. Users who may be intimidated by the computer, who the author seems to imply are a target audience for paper prototyping, brings up the question whether the data may be misleading for the very reason that the intimidation factor has been removed. After all, the end product will be online, not in a more familiar paper format."
Also, as websites become more dynamic and interfaces predicated more on user choices, wouldn't this type of prototype become less and less effective? This could be used as an internal tool, but then wouldn't this be redundant to storyboards and wire frames?
Given that the term low-fidelity seems to be used as a synonym for paper prototypes, what appears to be in demand from the businesses is mid-fidelity deliverables. There are two identifiable Fortune 500 initiatives to integrate mid-fidelity tools into their methodologies this year.
First, the selection of your method should be based on what you're trying to accomplish.
I'm a big paper prototyping fan for many reasons, but there are times when other methods are better. (I'm doing a workshop on Paper Prototyping at this year's IA Summit, where I'll discuss this in further detail and walk attendees through the method. You'll even be tasked with creating paper prototypes and testing them during class).
Second, two huge advantages over interactive prototypes is that paper is faster and cheaper. You cannot create HTML mockups as fast as you can paper prototypes (if you're experienced doing paper prototypes). HTML prototypes can be done quickly (tools like Visio support this), but not as quickly as paper ones (don't discount the time it takes to hook up the hyperlinks). Not to mention, when doing an interactive prototype, you have to hook up all the functions to test the entire screen. W/paper, you don't have to hook up anything to test the entire screen - huge time saver there.
Also, every tried to make an instantaneous change during testing for something that was left out of the design? Say, a participant wants to perform a particular action from a link, or action button that doesn't exist. Well, w/paper, you can make it quickly while they're there and simulate an AJAX transition in about 30 seconds. Can't do that w/interactive prototypes.
True, paper won't allow you to log keystrokes, so if you're after that, you should use something else. Also, data has to be simulated (typically done w/greek text, but that's also often the case w/an interactive prototype).
We've found them to be an extremely valuable tool for gathering feedback and testing design concepts. You'd be surprised how much simulation you really can do w/paper when you know how. Last year we even simulated an animated audio player. We had a scrubber that actually moved along the timeline (the "computer" pulled the scrubber along the timeline with a piece of string). It was brilliant. No method is the holy grail, but typically combined methods can get you close.
AND this chart is good, from Austin Govella
On my blog, I compared different kinds of deliverables, from specs all the way through high-fidelity, HTML prototypes:
* http://thinkingandmaking.com/entries/94
You might find it useful for this discussion.
The Originator concludes with:
I generally keep everything in "sketch" mode until the requirements are more defined, so no, my HTML prototypes aren't computer wireframes in such that they also apply brand requirements such as imagery, logos, and as much messaging as is available at the time. They are also presented to the user on-screen. Yet in some ways, yes, you are correct, they are "glorified" wireframes, yet with some design elements built in.
The big advantage of HTML prototypes (to me) are that they mimic the interactivity, at least insofar as the screen-keyboard-mouse type interactivity that I have usually needed to test. Most of the users on my previous projects, however, were very un-web savvy, so the effect of having to use an online system rather than faxing or email was significant to many of my previous objectives.
I'll keep exploring the paper prototype option though. ( ) made a good point about the ability to change paper prototypes on the fly, which cannot be done with virtual mock-ups, regardless of budget or developer availability, so I'll explore that further.
First Impressions Count
Jared Spool and Perfetti picked up on this on their Brain Sparks, as some may recall, they have promoted the idea of 5 second instant evaluations of the first impression of a website. While a lot of the examples cited (Craig's List, Google, eBay) are very well established
This is a "research pattern" I like to use in almost every usability protocol, as a first task, evaluating first impression before you miss the chance. You only have the one chance to acquire an initial response to a design concept. That chance should be embraced, indulged, then analyzed with all the other responses acquired.
One thing I noticed about these studies is that they are not comparing multiple alternatives of the same concept, which is what we often do in design research. When conducting evaluations comparing two or more alternatives of a visual design used in a site or product, its helpful to balance the alternatives between participants, to control for order effects. Remember to randomize! It is probably more important to balance the order of presentation of visual/perceptual effects (such as a first impression) than for consciously-performed tasks. There is only one first impression, even among alternatives.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Experience-centered Re-design of Physical Space
As one of the participants in last month's IAI-sponsored workshop on UI Design for Physical Spaces (at MAYA Design and the Carnegie Libraries of Pittsburgh, CLP), I've had a little time to think about some other implications of the workshop and how it might apply in other domains. Peter Merholz wrote up a terrific review of the workshop, which he organized with MAYA on behalf of IAI. His outline of the process and his insights are well worth reading.
There were a few things that stayed with me though - first of all, MAYA's approach should not be viewed as a generic, global approach reusable in any integration of UX with architectural design. The project was uniquely structured to fit the needs of the Carnegie Library, which was looking for a holistic design to solve several problems (as pointed out in Peterme's discussion). Their user-centered design approach accounted for persona types, typical patron goals and needs, and the flow of interaction between 3 "organizers": Space, other people (librarians, etc.), and "categorizations." Categorizations included the catalogs, content descriptions, messages that guided flow within content.
The library redesign project provides an excellent case study for:
- Process, as achieved by the CLP and their design team triad of architects, visual information designers, and UX designers,
- Product, notable in the end result of a greatly improved physical environment and user-centered flow,
- and People, or the resulting experience for the library patrons.
See more shots at Flickr:
While this approach works well for the problem as explored, there were a few design paths not explored in this approach that might be considered in other physical information spaces.
- Discretionary use of public space: Design for the itinerant mobile office and other emerging patron types.
- The "space of the content" : Design for the content experience, for locating and branching from books and topics of interest to the patron. This flow was left to the traditional library systems.
- Future Planning: Design for an immersive, sensor-driven, ambient intelligent space.
Step 1 Ambient Info: Kiosk display or printout based on recognition of patron and recent check-outs
Step 2 AmInfo: Recommendations of new books on topic, recent magazine articles indexed to topic or author, etc.
Step 3 AmInfo: Online, website: Instant renewal, leading to recommended or reserve queue
Step 4 AmInfo: Recognition response at library alerts librarian to provide reserved books, media, etc.
Another opportunity is found in observing actual uses of the library physical space over a longer timeline. What do repeat patrons do when they show up day after day? A lot of library use is discretionary and not task-related. People have time to kill while waiting for an appointment - what do they tend to do? Does the space support them? (See Peterme's and James Melzer's shots of the Squirrel Hill branch to see how people are camping out).
But another emergent use, pointed out by my CMU colleague Yang Cai, is the use of the public library as a mobile office. Yang camps out with his laptop and cell phone, to actually get work done away from CMU. In his opinion, the arrangement of space for his purposes is wanting - he is looking for a bit of privacy, not a sharing of public space like the Coffee Shop or reading room. Perhaps the library does not want to encourage this though? Something else to observe ...
Thursday, January 05, 2006
2006: Resolutions from Bruce Mau's Manifesto
1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
