3. MS Teams — Paper Prototype
“The bottom line is that confronting your target customers is nonnegotiable. We must learn as quickly as possible if the idea we are working on is stupid and worthless.” (Levy, 2015, p. 29)
The main advantage of the paper prototype or low fidelity prototype is the simplified pattern, that allows its creation quickly. Another great point is that it allows people with various backgrounds to be involved in the early stages of ideation. It is cheap, and do not need additional technical skills.
After deliberation, we chose Josh’s Prototype. The most significant differential of this option is the control that the teacher would have in selecting a student to explain their previous answer in more detail. Since the solution we sought was a way of increasing student’s participation and engagement, it seemed the best option available.
The concept was a way of creating a poll, that evolved as we can see below:
If you want to see my version of a different paper prototype, click here.
The sequence above was a result of our group first impressions. We understood that some mistakes were made in the first concept concerning the persona profile “Teacher” that we were working. Some screens occurred to be a mix between the teacher’s view, and students’ perspective. From this feedback, Josh adjusted his version, giving back to us a more refined prototype, ready to be tested. If you want to see the screens above in more detail, click here.
Paper Prototype Presentation
“Once you have a good idea who your target users are and the task goals they have, walk-throughs are used to explore how a user might fare with a product by envisioning the user’s route through an early concept or prototype of the product. Usually the designer responsible for the work guides his or her colleagues through actual user tasks (sometimes even playing the role for the user), while another team member records difficulties encountered or concerns of the team.” (Rubin & Chisnell, 2008)
The paper prototype presentation was done by Josh, using Invision. He recorded the sequence of actions that we had planned. Meanwhile, the rest of the group worked on the creation of the interview and test settings. Regarding usability, the recorded version was smoother than see it statically and gave insights of which questions would be relevant to proceed in our testing sessions.
Considerations
“We know that as we begin to research, design, develop, and test, new information will be revealed, and this new information will undoubtedly force course corrections” (Gothelf & Seiden, 2016, p. 22)
Representing in paper what is our minds is a task more challenging than it seems. My first attempt was extremely detailed, the absolute opposite what of it should be. Before I had started the paper prototype, I did not have a clear idea of all the obstacles that specific user could face. Making it in paper allowed me to see interactions better and the misleading points. Moreover, communication and understanding within the team increased. Although we did not create the paper prototype together, we were on the same page.
If you need your user to understand what the icons and interactions should be, you must end making an extra effort to make the image clear to them. Since we have available digital tools to create such as freehand for Invision, and Sketch, I do not feel prone to drawing it by hand. Unless I am exclusively presenting to a design team, more familiarised to the structure or with the subjects. On the other hand, I understand the usefulness if you have to consider time as a matter of extreme importance. Drawing skills are essential to make visually understandable the interface; otherwise, it might be a reason for miscommunication.
Bibliography
Accenture Interactive Amsterdam. (2016, February 26). Low-fi prototyping: What, Why and How? Prototypr.io. Retrieved November, 2020, from https://blog.prototypr.io/low-fi-prototyping-what-why-and-how-24f77d9f4995
Cooper, A., Reimann, R., Cronin, D. & Noessel, C. (2014). About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design (4th ed.). Indianapolis, Indiana, USA: Wiley.
Dam, Rikke Friis, Siang, Teo Yu (2020, September). 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process. Interaction Design Foundation. Retrieved November, 2020, from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-thinking-process
Dam, Rikke Friis, Siang, Teo Yu (2020, September). What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular? Interaction Design Foundation. Retrieved November, 2020, from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-is-design-thinking-and-why-is-it-so-popular
Gothelf, J., & Seiden, J. (2016). Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams (2nd ed.). Sebastopol, CA, USA: O’Reilly Media.
Levy, J. (2015). UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want. Sebastopol, CA, USA: O’Reilly Media.
Preece, J., Sharp, H. and Rogers, Y. (2019). Interaction Design: Beyond Human- Computer Interaction (5th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
Rubin, J., & Chisnell, D. (2008). Handbook of usability testing: how to plan, design and conduct effective tests (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
