Labs Week 4 - Prototyping
By this lab, teams should have a deep understanding of users needs and expectations, and should have started to develop their prototype concept based on this understanding of their users.
In this lab, teams should be working on the prototype and the essential/critical tasks that support the concepts that they are exploring.
The lab is not intended to show you how to work with a particular prototyping tool (e.g., Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, etc.) as this is something you can do on your own using external resources. The lab is to focus discussion with the instructor on how your design follows the insights from user research.
Your designs will need to follow the different levels of detail:
Low fidelity: At this stage, you should be using paper or a prototyping tool for low fidelity prototypes. You should have wireframes for the overall interaction flow for each of your critical tasks.
Mid fidelity: At this stage, you should be using a prototyping tool for mid fidelity prototype. These prototypes should focus on the overall aesthetic qualities of the application.
High fidelity: At this stage, you should be using a prototyping tool for high fidelity prototype. These prototypes should focus on the overall interaction flow for the application, considering the overall aesthetic quality of the application and its potential for user evaluation.
Fully functioning (not needed for this course, although teams are free to develop it): At this stage, using your chosen development platforms, your functional prototype would not only support the essential/critical tasks, but allows interaction/exploration of the app or secondary tasks.
Teams should consider conducting Wizard of Oz sessions (minimum 5/6 users) using your low or mid-fidelity prototype:
Teams can use this study to compare design ideas by incorporating variations of design of a certain feature/concept; test the overall flow of the application; understand the user?s mental model of a certain concept of the app; etc.
Teams can use low or mid-fidelity prototypes, but should contemplate and justify their choice. E.g., if using paper prototyping, having one wizard responsible for UI flow, and having one wizard responsible for backend transactions. E.g., using a mid-fidelity prototype if the study needs to be done over Zoom.
The WoZ study should have a set of predefined tasks that all users have to do but be flexible enough to allow exploration and enable users to perform tasks outside the defined set.
Teams should observe users during the study and report on these observations.
Collect user feedback after the study: What were their main challenges? What did they like the most? What was the easiest task to perform? etc.