1. Gary MarsdenSlide 1University of Cape Town Human-Computer Interaction - 8 Prototyping Gary Marsden ( gaz@cs.uct.ac.za ) July 2002

2. Gary MarsdenSlide 2University of Cape Town Unit Objectives  We shall cover –Design guides –What they look like –Perils of using them  Rationale: –It is impossible for designers to be expert in all the disciplines of HCI, so guidelines are constructed to guide non-experts in matters such as psychology, art, sociology etc.

3. Gary MarsdenSlide 3University of Cape Town Doing the stuff  So, you have conducted requirements analysis, read your design guides and considered the users’ mental models  It is time to actually make something  That something is a prototype –Most modern lifecycles require iteration about a prototype

4. Gary MarsdenSlide 4University of Cape Town What is a prototype  Cardboard box, storyboard  Piece of software  Chunk of plywood (Jeff Hawkin)  Dummy box

5. Gary MarsdenSlide 5University of Cape Town Why Prototype?  Evaluation and feedback are central to interaction design  Stakeholders can see, hold, interact with a prototype more easily than a document or a drawing  Team members can communicate effectively  You can test out ideas for yourself  It encourages reflection: very important aspect of design  Prototypes answer questions, and support designers in choosing between alternatives

6. Gary MarsdenSlide 6University of Cape Town What is Prototyped? Technical issues Work flow, task design Screen layouts and information display Difficult, controversial, critical areas NOT just changing skins!

7. Gary MarsdenSlide 7University of Cape Town Low Fidelity  Uses a medium which is unlike the final medium, e.g. paper, cardboard  Is quick, cheap and easily changed  Examples: sketches of screens, task sequences, etc ‘Post-it’ notes storyboards ‘Wizard-of-Oz’

8. Gary MarsdenSlide 8University of Cape Town Wizard of Oz

9. Gary MarsdenSlide 9University of Cape Town Low-Fi Examples

10. Gary MarsdenSlide 10University of Cape Town High Fidelity  Uses materials that you would expect to be in the final product.  Prototype looks more like the final system than a low-fidelity version.  For a high-fidelity software prototype common environments include Macromedia Director, Visual Basic, and Smalltalk.  Danger that users think they have a full system…….see compromises

11. Gary MarsdenSlide 11University of Cape Town Compromises  All prototypes involve compromises  For software-based prototyping maybe there is a slow response? sketchy icons? limited functionality?  Two common types of compromise  ‘horizontal’: provide a wide range of functions, but with little detail  ‘vertical’: provide a lot of detail for only a few functions  Compromises in prototypes mustn’t be ignored. Product needs engineering

12. Gary MarsdenSlide 12University of Cape Town Realising Prototypes  Taking the prototypes (or learning from them) and creating a whole  Quality must be attended to: usability (of course), reliability, robustness, maintainability, integrity, portability, efficiency, etc  Product must be engineered  Evolutionary prototyping  ‘Throw-away’ prototyping

13. Gary MarsdenSlide 13University of Cape Town Users & Prototypes  The only way to really test the interface of a prototype is with real users  The lifecycles give us a way to feed what we discover back into the development process  The question remains of the best way of involving the users

14. Gary MarsdenSlide 14University of Cape Town Why Involve Users?  Expectation management –Realistic expectations –No surprises, no disappointments –Timely training –Communication, but no hype  Ownership –Make the users active stakeholders –More likely to forgive or accept problems –Can make a big difference to acceptance and success of product

15. Gary MarsdenSlide 15University of Cape Town Microsoft Model  Users are involved throughout development  ‘activity-based planning’: studying what users do to achieve a certain activity (task)  usability tests e.g. Office 4.0 over 8000 hours of usability testing.  internal use by Microsoft staff  customer support lines

16. Gary MarsdenSlide 16University of Cape Town General UCD  User-centered approach is based on: –Early focus on users and tasks: directly studying cognitive, behavioral, anthropomorphic & attitudinal characteristics –Empirical measurement: users’ reactions and performance to scenarios, manuals, simulations & prototypes are observed, recorded and analysed –Iterative design: when problems are found in user testing, fix them and carry out more tests

17. Gary MarsdenSlide 17University of Cape Town Ethnography  Understanding users’ work is significant  Ethnography: from anthropology –‘writing the culture’ –participant observation  Difficult to use the output of ethnography in design  Often surprising (Pia)

18. Gary MarsdenSlide 18University of Cape Town Participatory Design  Rather than being observed, users are treated as equal partners  Scandinavian history  Emphasises social and organisational aspects  Based on study, model-building and analysis of new and potential future systems

19. Gary MarsdenSlide 19University of Cape Town PD in Practice - PICTIVE  Plastic Interface for Collaborative Technology Initiatives through Video Exploration  Intended to empower users to act a full participants in design  Michael Muller (nice chap)

20. Gary MarsdenSlide 20University of Cape Town PICTIVE  Materials used are: –Low-fidelity office items such as pens, paper, sticky notes –Collection of (plastic) design objects for screen and window layouts  Equipment required: –Shared design surface, e.g. table –Video recording equipment

21. Gary MarsdenSlide 21University of Cape Town PICTIVE Session  Before a PICTIVE session: –Users generate scenarios of use –Developers produce design elements for the design session  A PICTIVE session has four parts: –Stakeholders all introduce themselves –Brief tutorials about areas represented in the session (optional) –Brainstorming of ideas for the design –Walkthrough of the design and summary of decisions made

22. Gary MarsdenSlide 22University of Cape Town Summary  In this session we looked at –Prototypes When and what sort to use –Involving users in design User Centred Design Ethnography Participative design