Just how do I design if not with prototyping? An excellent question. The short answer is ‘on paper.
Paper prototyping is a requirements gathering (and often times a usability testing) technique to collaborate on user interfaces. So be prepared to get our some sharpies, some post-it notes, and some tape and get started. We have done this exercise with various types of media in many different kinds of environments. Getting creative is an excellent way to getting everyones ideas out.
Rapid paper prototyping is a fast and easy way to design and model web page elements. It is a cheap method that can help process real world scenarios and create GUIs (graphical user interfaces) that make good impressions with users. It’s also an excellent way to do user research by giving your participants a role in the design process—uncovering important nuances that can greatly improve your product and processes.
This is a huge timesaver because designing on paper is a lot cheaper than programming user interfaces that just have to be thrown away. It’s also a great prerequisite to wire framing, because you can draw much faster than using stencils in Visio or OmniPage. It’s also great because the “designer” can have little to no technical experience and still get their ideas across.
Introducing paper prototyping to your organization can help uncover usability issues early (before design is committed to code). Usability testing with paper prototypes is very similar to traditional usability testing, except we heavily document what the user says they would to solve a problem. We also allow the users to mock up their own prototypes to explain how they would attempt to solve a problem.
To learn more about how paper prototyping can impact your design processes, give us a call and we would be happy to set you down the right path.