ICS 667, Week of 2/28: Prototyping

Assignments Due

Assignment 6, Abstract Prototypes for Collaborative Calendars, due 3/6 (extended)

Assignment 7, Project Proposal, due 3/2 (but preferably 3/1)

New Topics and Readings

Prototyping in Usability Engineering

Rosson & Carroll Ch. 6;
Constantine & Lockwood Ch. 10.
(Last week's C&L PDF articles also apply)

These chapters portray prototyping as a part of scenario-based or usage-centered design. Prototypes can be used early to explore requirements, and are a natural step in a refinement approach. Prototypes are more easily understood by users and can be tested directly.

Agile Development

Extreme Programming: A Gentle Introduction: http://www.extremeprogramming.org/index2.html (follow the XP icons).
Constantine (2001): Process Agility and Software Usability: Toward Lightweight Usage-Centered Design: http://www.foruse.com/articles/agiledesign.htm

"Agile" methodologies such as eXtreme Programming (XP) advocate iterative development of working implementations as an alternative to successive refinement from abstractions. Can we skip all that planning and use working programs as the primary design representation? Let's discuss that question.

Slides

07_Prototyping.pdf

Activities

Monday will probably be all lecture and discussion on the topic of prototyping and agile development. We will discuss your project proposals on Wednesday.

New Assignment

Assignment 8: Project Requirements Planning (due 3/8 or 3/12, depending on how soon you want feedback)

The End.