On Nov 8, 2007, at 10:39 AM, Katie Albers wrote: > To me this argument is like saying that if you test in a room with > a prism in the window and users spend their time captivated by the > pretty shiny thing, that is user feedback.
I think that's a bit of a stretch. The thing I'm talking about are "distractions" related to the product itself, not general world environment. If you were testing the room, the analogy would be correct, but outside "distractions" are not nearly the same things as distractions inherent in the design of the product itself. > My general preference is to separate the elements that need to be > tested and test them separately insofar as is possible and then > roll them progressively into a more nearly complete entity which > gets tested. Often, when the elements bang up against each other > they alter previous results, but that enriches previous findings. > It doesn't render them irrelevant. Agreed. We tend to largely work like this as well. But the feedback when the prototype reaches critical mass is often far more intense, rich and detailed than at earlier stages. And far more useful in making the kind of adjustments needed in my experience. The challenge for me is how to get to that stage as quickly as possible while still being able to iterate. > And since the question of the car prototype keeps coming up, I > would just ask that we keep in mind that prototyping a car starts > with drawings - external, internal, elevations andand so on; then > the external becomes a clay model that is tested for drag, > efficiency, etc and refined, while the question of the interior > becomes a separate set of tasks that -- again -- starts from > drawings and elevations and becomes more and more tightly specified > and measured and examined by potential drivers and is tested > against human ergonomic requirements -- often by doing a mock up of > a seat, steering wheel and paper prototypes of gauges and controls > and so on...until gradually you have an actual functioning > prototype car. Beyond being a excellent Nabokov impersonation, I agree. The problem I have is that people too often in this field attempt to avoid going for this approach for a variety of factors that seem unnecessary. I'm erring on the side of being dogmatic towards a process that builds a high fidelity prototype -- where "paper" is design tool, not a prototyping tool -- because in my experience, too often in the high technology field, people tend to avoid them like the plague because they require "coding." -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
