The purpose of this assignment:
- To prepare a prototype "implementation" that
- is ready for usability testing
- reflects aspects of the conceptual and physical designs
that need to be tested
- To gain experience with a low cost/rapid prototyping method
on a real project
Please do the following:
You will have two weeks to do this assignment.
As usual, the details of this assignment depend on your project.
However, every project by now should have a design, whether using
SBD's Interaction and Information scenarios or UCD's EUCs, Contexts,
and Abstract Layouts.
You should immediately go over these design representations with
some users if you have not already done so.
Then you will be ready for this assignment. Your next step is to
create a prototype for testing. What "prototype" means
depends on the needs of your project and the resources available
to you.
You need to decide what you are expecting to achieve by building
and testing a prototype. What design decisions are most in need
of empirical testing? What do you need to show to your customer
to convince her or him that the project is worth continuing?
Then decide what kind of prototype is approriate. Will this will
be a horizontal, vertical or "deep and wide" prototype?
Low or high fidelity? Why?
Then you need to choose a medium for prototyping that meets the
needs and objectives identified above. Any of the following are
acceptable.
- A paper mockup along with precise instructions for simulating
the behavior of the interface.
- Web pages simulating the planned interface.
- Interactive multimedia such as Flash or Hypercard simulating
the planned interface.
- A prototype implemented in a conventional programming language.
- (You may propose other forms of prototypes.)
Do not delay. By about 4/27 or soon thereafter
you should be having several users test your prototype. You
will report your prelimnary results of this user testing on 5/2
or 5/4!
To turn in:
- Write up a description of your prototype, including
- Objectives: what you hope to evaluate
- The type of prototype you chose to do (horizontal, vertical,
low or high fidelity, medium)
- Screen
dumps as you think may be helpful
- If the prototype is online or downloadable, tell us what we
need to know to access it.
- Give a summary of how you plan to evaluate this prototype.
- Post as usual as a thread in the disCourse discussion for Assignment
12.
- Then view and comment on the requirements
for some other projects. Remember, online discussion is part of
your grade!
Due midnight 4/23
To be discussed in class 4/25, so we need to review this 4/24
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