Concepts and Prototypes CS352

Announcements Notice upcoming due dates (web page). Where we are in PRICPE: Predispositions: Did this in Project Proposal. RI: Research was studying users. Hopefully led to Insights. CP: Concept and initial (very low-fi) Prototypes due next. Evaluate throughout, repeat iteratively!!

Concepts Pre-prototype. Explore how to address some aspect, eg: The interface metaphor (eg, desktop, ...) The paradigm or device (eg, WIMP, wearable, ...) The interaction type (eg, instructing, conversing, manipulating/demonstrating, or exploring) This is a brainstorming-like tool Consider several concepts. There should be some bad ideas! 1. don’t get too attached to a concept and 2. don’t spend too much time on any of them.

Concept Examples: Hardware Platform Examples from Mike Madison’s homelessness project. (He ultimately scrapped all of them.)

Concept Examples: Aspect= “Show energy usage”

Concept Example (but too polished): Aspect=Window Management Fig 6.3 from Rogers. Safari’s window mgt technique: pressing the icon top left displays the 12 top sites visited, shrunk and side-by-side, to let user see all concurrently and select quickly

Concept Examples (but too polished): Aspect= “Select” Paradigm Figs 6.4 and 6.5 from Rogers.

Concept Example (but too polished): Aspect= “Quick Entry” Pepsi: Contest entry. This is Fig 6.22 from Rogers.

Concept Examples (but too polished): Aspect= “Alert Style”

Concepts Can Also Explore Metaphors Remember from Perceptions lecture: Brains store “frames” (familiar patterns), which “prime” what we perceive. eg: Homes have bathrooms. eg: Ventriloquism. Metaphors: leverage framing & help users build a mental model. eg: Metaphor is like a Java class. eg: Computer desktop is like a desktop. “Variables/types in it”: folders, trash can, … “Methods”: You can put documents into folders, label them, discard them, ...

In-Class Activity In your teams: Sketch >=3 concepts for the on-line grocery. Exploring the dimension/aspect of: Quick entry (of groceries I plan to buy) At least one should use a “list” metaphor. (Remember, lists have “variables” and “methods”)

Is metaphor good? Questions to try to decide: Does it help? How much structure does the metaphor provide? How well does the metaphor fit the problem? are there leftover bits of the metaphor? are there leftover bits of the problem? if yes, can the metaphor extend to cover them? Is it easy to represent? Will your audience understand the metaphor?

Prototypes To flesh out a concept with enough detail to communicate/understand user experience in detail. in this class: for our use to understand user problems with our ideas. can also be used to communicate with boss, news media, etc... Lo-fi prototypes ideal for some purposes: cheap yet force enough attention to detail.

Higher fi prototypes Useful: When: AFTER get through lower-fi ones first. Why: Get at details of design (layout, icons, colors etc) Front end finished with widgets polished up, but behavior/data is hard-coded (no back end). For boss, at trade shows, etc.

Lo-fi prototypes (we will start here) Just how lo-fi can one go The lowest-fi: paper At first: sketches as screen-transition diagrams. Later can be more polished. Static paper vs. “interactive” paper. Example: Wizard of oz: on the computer, but human fakes in the computer logic. There are tool-supported variants of these. Details of each next...

Paper prototypes Static paper For communicating among team. Usually done as a sketched storyboard or sketched “state machine”. Example: lo-fi paper prototypes (next 2 slides). Hi-fi prototype (slide after those two)

Static Low-fi Prototype #1 (Screen transition diagram) From Rogers, Figs 11.18-11.19. Explain the arrows start and stop position.

Static Low-fidelity prototype #2 Explain screens and transitions

Static high-fidelity prototype (Screen transition diagram)

Dynamic Paper prototypes Dynamic (interactive) paper For evaluating with user at a very low-cost. Wizard of oz: on the computer, but human fakes in the computer logic.

Dynamic/interactive paper prototypes (cont.) Examples: Example #1: from ML-interaction experiment. (Next slide). Example #2 (if time permits): from spreadsheet study (this one has elements of wizard-of-oz) Example #3: next next slide

Lo-fi interactive prototype set-up with pens, printouts, table

Dynamic lo-fi prototype: Screen #1 From Christoph Neumann’s “Interactive Football” strategy programming environment

Tool-supported prototypes Low-fi with tool support. DENIM (click) and CogTool (fig in an upcoming slide): tools for sketched storyboards/states. Can transition these to nicer, more polished versions. Denim fig is from: https://jameslin.name/images/denim_small.jpg

CogTool Example

Activity Choose one concept you did for the on-line grocery. Consider one specific user task: your user wants to buy ingredients to make lemonade. Sketch a prototype storyboard/states of your UI: that shows how your user will accomplish that task in your UI.

CS 352 Prototyping In here: We will begin with static paper (sketched screen transition diagrams), then iterate from that start using a tool called Mockups.