One of the most interesting came from a respondent who didn’t feel paper is a prototyping medium, but rather a design medium. When I asked what tools people are using for prototyping, I received a long list of responses. 661–665.There’s a pretty good discussion on the IxDA list regarding prototypes, what constitutes a prototype, what the goals are, etc. Landay, High-fidelity or low-fidelity, paper or computer? Choosing attributes when testing web prototypes, Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 46th Annual Meeting, September 29–October 4, 2002, Baltimore, USA, HFES, Santa Monica (2002), pp.
PROTOTYPE DEFINITION SERIES
They range from a series of hand-drawn mock-ups to printouts. Low-fidelity prototypes are often paper-based and do not allow user interactions.With that said, there are things to consider when trying to decide which option is best for your project: Both have been found to be basically equivalent in finding usability issues (Walker et al 2002). There is an on-going debate about using low versus high fidelity prototyping and how much a prototype should resemble the final version of your design. High-Fidelity and Low-Fidelity Prototyping Tracy Lepore further defines the differences by visually showing the continuum from sketch to design by depicting the relationships between what the design is trying to communicate, the amount of iteration between phases, and the fidelity of the design. Bill Buxton, in his book Sketching User Experiences, provides a list of descriptors that help explain the differences:
The Difference between Sketches and PrototypesĪlthough the difference between sketches, wireframes, and prototypes isn’t always clear, there are differences in their intentions.
PROTOTYPE DEFINITION CODE
He notes that it’s cheaper to make changes before any code has been written than to wait until after the implementation is complete.
Nielsen has found that the biggest improvements in user experience come from gathering usability data as early as possible. Prototyping allow you to gather feedback from users while you are still planning and designing your Web site. Therefore, you should consider building prototypes early in the process. It is much cheaper to change a product early in the development process than to make change after you develop the site. A prototype can be anything from paper drawings (low-fidelity) to something that allows click-through of a few pieces of content to a fully functioning site (high-fidelity).
A prototype is a draft version of a product that allows you to explore your ideas and show the intention behind a feature or the overall design concept to users before investing time and money into development.