Prototyping

Objective

• Define the term prototype
• Describe why prototypes are important in ensuring usability
• Define the terms:
• Participatory design
• Parallel design
• Define the “PICTIVE” prototyping method, and be able to demonstrate its use in prototyping
• Describe several ways of speeding up the prototyping process
• Describe the differences between horizontal and vertical prototypes
• Define the term scenario, and describe how scenarios can be used in prototyping

Summary

Prototyping is essential to the success of software projects and is a fundamental process of UI design. Prototyping processes are discussed in this lecture along with the use of scenarios.

Video 

Reference Materials

The wikipedia article on prototyping is very thorough and covers all major topics of the software prototyping process in detail - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_prototyping 

An excellent discussion with visuals on the prototyping process is at Usability.gov - https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/prototyping.html 

Participatory design is heavily used in software development, but is a well accepted design process used for other types of design. You should familiarize yourself with the full concept of participatory design - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_design . A specific methodology of participatory design is PICTIVE, some information on this is available here - https://www.techopedia.com/definition/16425/pictive 

Horizontal and vertical prototypes are well defined at http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/horizontal-and-vertical-prototypes/ 

Additional Information

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