On Mar 1, 2009, at 12:16 AM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:
Are you suggesting that testing the behavior of a slider control with a paper prototype is better than a fully interactive one done on JavaScript?
More effective? That depends. I can build an interactive slider control with less time and effort than you or anyone else could in real JavaScript. That's actually one of the methods I teach during my paper prototyping workshops. And yes, I teach more methods than just paper.
One of the things you're missing, again, is context. If the goal of my prototype is to work through a design idea or to communicate the concept to another team member, then a method like paper is quite good. If on the other hand, you're pitching it to the CEO, or trying to sell the customer on a feature, then paper probably won't cut it.
One of the things I think tends to happen in this field is people conflate "prototyping" with "sketching." In all of the discussions I've had, it seems to me that paper prototyping is one of those horribly misnamed design activities. It probably should have been called "interactive sketching."
Sketching is part of the prototyping process. A sketch isn't a prototype. But a prototype is merely the outcome of the process. There are a number of activities that occur along the prototyping process, like sketching, communicating, critiquing, iterating, etc.
Further, for a field that calls itself "interaction design" I think it is high time people start to truly embrace the means and methods that will allow you to design... [...] it's high time to take back the design of the interaction by using something like JQuery to prototype the idea, not scissors, paper, glue.
I'll partially agree here. I suspect we're going to see, or should expect to see, more and more interaction designers getting their hands dirty with things like XHTML, JQuery, and Catalyst in the future. And there's really no better time than the present, especially considering the increasingly competitive nature of the industry considering the global economic scare.
Cheers! Todd Zaki Warfel President, Design Researcher Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully. ---------------------------------- Contact Info Voice: (215) 825-7423 Email: [email protected] AIM: [email protected] Blog: http://toddwarfel.com Twitter: zakiwarfel ---------------------------------- In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not. ________________________________________________________________ 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
