User interface prototyping is an essential activity in the field of user interface design that provides a basis for continuous evaluation and improvement of a to-be-designed user interface. In usability engineering, the focus of using prototypes lies on evaluating the usability of intended approaches and on generating concrete recommendations for advancing an interface design. While doing so, there are several aspects to keep in mind in order to maximize the efficiency of prototype use for usability engineering. Three issues are described in this post.
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Wireframes are an essential tool in the usability engineer’s toolbox. They can be created easily and support communication regarding fundamental layout and interaction design. Usually, little to no resources are spent on visually “styling” the wireframe in order to efficiently focus on the fundamentals without investing too much effort in visual details that are likely to undergo significant visual changes later.
If members of the design team / stakeholders lack experience with using wireframes, certain problems can occur that may impair a user interface design project, two of which shall briefly be described.
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It is still a common complaint uttered by usability professionals that organizations in general and software developers in particular “just don’t get” usability engineering. They are frustrated because they have all good intentions to provide support for creating user-friendly systems but the reactions they get are reserved at best and developers simply don’t buy into the whole usability engineering process.
So, whose fault is it? Who is it that is just not getting it?
As often in life, it takes two and an occasion to create a problem. Let’s have a closer look.
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“Who needs usability engineering, anyway?” – This is a question that one might hear from people whose experiences with usability engineering services have not been too good.
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With all the “advanced topics” on usability engineering floating around in the blogosphere it may sometimes be hard to find information on the fundamentals, so we are providing this primer on the involvement of end users in the development process. This is basic information, but for some readers it may also be information they always wanted to know but were afraid to ask for. After all, you have to start somewhere.
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An essential part of designing user interfaces consists of communicating about system behavior and functionality that has ultimately to be provided in the user interface in a user-friendly manner.
To transfer knowledge regarding system behavior / system functionality, a variety of methods can be used. Often, use case descriptions and screen scribbles are employed to provide the required information. When a user interface designer has a kickoff meeting for a project, for example, a stakeholder can scribble a screen that would provide essential system functionality so that the user interface designer gets a quick impression of certain system aspects. During requirements engineering, use case descriptions might have been created that are handed to the user interface designer to get a feeling for workflows that are carried out and the desired user-system interaction.
Both ways of documentation have their advantages and drawbacks.
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