Hi Oleg,

On 6/3/08, Oleg Krupnov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> I've had a discussion with a professional and he claimed that for his team
> and process, lo-fi prototypes are not practical. They a) scare the customer
> b) too different from the final product look so that the customer's opinion
> may change when he sees the product and c) mix together wireframing
> (documenting) and prototyping (implementing) and so are an additional
> effort
> and productivity leak. He advocated lo-fi prototypes only for low budget
> projects. I'd like to validate this point of view.


> They a) scare the customer

In some cases, yes. I don't know who your customers are, but for some of the
clients I've worked with this has definitely been true. I've found that it's
people who need to rely on the system for their work and are not technically
savvy who tend to be the ones who get scared. If both of these
characteristics are true of your customers, then this point is definitely
valid. If it's not true, then this point is not valid.

> b) too different from the final product look so that the customer's
opinion
may change when he sees the product

You're not looking for the customer's opinion during early-stage
prototyping. You're trying to find out if the interaction design & IA works
or not, which is something you can observe during testing. If you're doing
later stage prototyping, then the more nuanced aspects of experience become
more important. So this point is not valid for early stage prototyping but
somewhat valid for late stage prototyping.

> c) mix together wireframing (documenting) and prototyping (implementing)
and so are an additional effort and productivity leak.

Erm. When you do all this at once, you actually *save* time. Since the
beginning of my career I have advocated for prototyping, but only when I
discovered and started using Axure was I able to actually do it. Why?
Because the wireframes (which I would do anyway) *were* the prototype. Yes,
it takes a *little* extra time to make your wireframes interactive, but WAY
less time than it would take to manage an entirely separate prototyping
process.

Also, it seems like your colleague believes that the prototype should evolve
into the code. In most cases, this is absolutely NOT the way to go. Trying
to make the prototype with code of the quality required to be launched would
slow down the process and make it much less useful.

So yeah, this particular aspect of the argument is totally invalid. : )

I hope this helps!

- Fred
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