[MUSIC] Welcome to Introduction to User Experience Design. Today we will discuss the third step in the user interface design cycle, prototyping. As we've discussed throughout the course, the core concept that drives user experience design is that users use interfaces to accomplish a task. The premise is that the best interface can only be designed if we understand the user and the task they want to accomplish. In the previous module we defined our problem space and were able to develop some alternative designs that will improve the task completion process leading to an improved user experience. In this module, Prototyping, we will consider how to make sure that our designs actually meet the user's needs. The goal of the novel design we create is to do a better job of meeting the needs of the user than the existing design. Here I want to underscore that the goal of design is not novelty for its own sake. It's novelty in the service of improving the user experience. A prototype can be defined as an early model of a novel design. We can classify prototyping in two ways. Low fidelity prototypes bare little similarity to the final design in either form or function, while high fidelity prototypes are very similar to the final design. In this lesson we will discuss and practice some low fidelity prototyping techniques. Prototyping literally sits literally and figuratively between design and evaluation. We prototype t o evaluate aspects of our new design and to check if the design is meeting the desired outcomes. Prototyping is important for a variety of reasons. First they allow us to manage precious resources such as time and money. This is because they are just models of our designs so they don't require for us to engage other highly trained professionals, such as software engineers or graphic designers. Second, because we can build these models quickly, it allows us to iterate on the design and move closer to our desired goal of meeting the user's needs. We can build horizontal prototypes that allow us to model the breadth of the design feature we plan to incorporate but include little functionality. Or, we can choose vertical prototypes where we will model a few features in depth. The question of whether to engage in horizontal or vertical prototyping depends on the goal of the exercise. In the previous lesson, we discussed designing a system that will allow students to organize study sessions for their college courses. Now imagine that we have identified the following five features. A horizontal prototype would require that we include all of them in existing interface, so a user could get a sense of how the five different features would be integrated. On the other hand, we could decide that two of these features are really the most important. And that we want to fully model the various screens that would be required for the user to complete the task for these two tasks. This would require vertical prototyping. We always want to start with low fidelity prototypes first. This is the case even if resources are not a problem. We do this because it is quick and easy. And it's a way to verify our design objectives. We do this for ourselves because putting our thoughts on paper may lead us to quite literally see things in a different light. Once we have gone through a couple of iterations, we can then share these low fidelity prototypes with colleagues and get their feedback. We can even engage stakeholders in the process. However, I want to remind you that user feedback is a very valuable resource, and we want to be judicious in how often we reach out to get their help. With low fidelity prototyping we're not going for perfection. We are looking for sequential iterations to check some aspects of our design. This is why paper prototyping is a great way to start. It only requires a paper and a pencil. Here are three techniques we will discuss in turn. These include sketching, storyboarding, and card-based prototypes. Sketching is a freehand depiction of images related to our design. The main point here is that this does not require being an artist or even having any talent that requires drawing skills. It is merely an exercise to get you to conceptualize an idea. You can easily represent people with stick figures and devices with squares. The goal is to become facile with putting your ideas on paper. Okay, I want you to draw a sketch that depicts why a study organizer is a good idea. I'll show you mine in a second. All right, so here is mine. As I said drawing ability is not a requirement. So I've drawn three students that are really upset because there's an upcoming math quiz. To indicate upcoming, you see that I drew a little calendar. And I underlined that it was May 4th and that the math quiz was coming up on May 10th. Again, all I used was stick figures and a little square to represent a calendar, nothing fancy. But here, I've tried to incorporate this idea that these students really need a way to get together. Studyboards are a common way to provide a narrative in a static fashion. Think about your favorite newspaper comic strip, in four to eight sequences you get an entire storyline. The technique of storyboarding does the same for designers. It allows us to put our design in context. It provides an opportunity to consider how the user would engage our new design with a given scenario. We learned about scenarios in an earlier lesson. Once again, we're going for practical iterations. It is fine to have simple stick figures and interacting in the scenes. I want you now to draw a two to five sequence storyboard of a successful scenario with the study organizer. I'll tell you about mine in a second. All right, so here's my storyboard. Once again, drawing skills are not a must for this exercise. In my storyboard I wanted to show that using my app would lead to meeting up with others that want to study and ultimately for a better grade for these students that used my so-called study-up app. In the first storyboard, you see that people are so worried that they have an upcoming math quiz. I simply put hair on one, a cap on another, and a third character with a bow tie. Then in the second storyboard they find the study app, right, and they say, great, because I can limit this to three people to study with. In the third strip I was able to get these three students to study. You show that they got an A. And then in the final one, I have the solitary student that didn't study with a group of students, and that ended up with a C. All right, whereas a studyboard was getting at a narrative, card-based prototyping will allow us to look at the sequences of interactions we might have with the actual interface. You can take a set of three by five index cards and have each represent a sequence of a screen that the user would encounter as she tries to accomplish a task. You can even take a standard sheet of paper and cut it into six cards and do the same thing. Construct a card-based prototype of five interactions with your study organizer. In a second, I'll show you mine. Here's mine. I came up with a new name for my app, Study-Buddy. I tried to incorporate the five features that were mentioned earlier. As you can see, the first card is just registration. In the second card I show that I get to verify the student's identity. In the third card, you can see that the student can actually register for multiple classes that they want to study for, even enter their preferred study location in the fourth one. And then in the fifth one, they can even enter what time they prefer to study. This concludes our lesson on low fidelity prototyping. In our next lesson, we will discuss high fidelity prototyping techniques, as well as other techniques that sit in between high and low fidelity. Thanks for your time, see you soon. [SOUND]
