Andrei said: "Paper is not a prototyping tool. It's a design tool. It's a sketching tool."
While reading, I have been looking up at the ceiling away from the thread and running that statement over and over in my head. Allow me to put forth what I have understood so far from the discussion - a thought experiment, if you will. Please stay with me on this. Here goes: 1) I visualize a screen-based interface in my head and draw it out on paper. Then, 2) I visualize the shape of a mobile device around the screen in my head and draw it out on paper. Next, I hand over paper number 2 to a modeller who works clay/wood/plasticine. He goes on to create a model of the device. In the meantime, I quickly run out on the street, assemble a bunch of 10 random people and show them paper number 1. My design research question to myself at this point: "Does the interface give out any HINTS to the random bunch of people what the mobile application is intended to do?" So who designed and who prototyped in the above scenarios? 1) Can I assume to have used a PAPER PROTOTYPE or PROTOTYPED ON PAPER? Because I could draw and coz I care for user-feedback, all I needed was a PAPER PROTOTYPE at that point to share with potential users. As I keep refining the interface design on paper, based on the initial feedback, I decide to abandon paper-for-prototyping and do mid-fidelity prototype in MS EXCEL(at this point I am tool-agnostic) I may choose to simulate some soft-key navigation in this specific design iteration. Now, even if I knew how to create hi-fidelity prototypes in Flash-lite would I have needed or used them at this point? 2) The clay/wood/plasticine modeller did the other part of the prototyping (which I wud prefer an industrial designer to test with potential users) moving gradually from clay, wood to plasticine during which key decisions about the form-factor, aesthetics etc. are arrived at. Depending on my levels of curiosity I may exchange notes with the device designer, but maybe not. Andrei seems to suggest along the way, that the designer alone should be able to do detailed modeling all the way up-to the finished hi-fidelity model/prototype. A lot of designers are quite adept at building prototypes physical or pixel and hence are designers prototypers rolled into one. While some others abandon building at the lo/mid-fidelity stage and instead take on communicating/reviewing (with the protoyper) right thru to hi-fidelity. That doesn't mean they have contributed any less up until that point. I haven't come across any writing that posits paper as a PROTOTYPING TOOL in the sense that some designers use Flash to generate prototypes. However I have come across substantial material that talks about PAPER PROTOTYPES as a means to generate user feedback. Just one random article about paper prototyping: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/paperprototyping So as a designer I am naturally inclined to quickly sketch the first iteration of the design (that is still evolving in my head) on PAPER. Does it make paper a design tool then? No, it makes it a SKETCHING tool. I may choose to skip paper when designing altogether. Likewise I may hit flash/power-point/HTML straight on to prototype(hi-fidelity but without the innards) for all I care. So where does that leave paper? So here's my final take on PAPER, IMHO. Paper is a humble sketching tool - ONLY a sketching tool. Not a design tool, not a prototyping tool! :) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss?post=22174 ________________________________________________________________ *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
