

Paper Prototyping in Usability Design - nreece
http://www.snyderconsulting.net/article_paperprototyping.htm

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antirez
I do it for every new application, you may think that you can do the same with
a computer but it is not true, in the process of drawing the feeling is very
different, there is no zoom, it's not trivial to erase, so you are forced to
think in more pure terms every line you are going to trace.

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edw519
I have been doing this forever. Tried other things, but always came back to
this. Not quite sure why.

Maybe because I have always "internalized" better when using pen and paper
than when typing or mousing.

Maybe because my "hardware" is always on and always with me.

Lately, I use 4 x 6 index cards wrapped in a rubber band and 3 different color
markers. Perfect fit for a standard shirt pocket, right shape for a screen
shot, and always ready to serve. It's surprising when (and where) inspiration
hits.

People in the supermarket or on an airplane think I'm nuts when I drop
everything and pull out my "shirt pocket computer". When I tell them that I'm
a programmer, they seem to understand.

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joeguilmette
this is ridiculous, just use ConceptDraw.

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jgrahamc
One advantage of paper prototypes is that anyone can draw them. There's no
need to learn a tool.

Currently, I'm working with a large web site where we are redoing a section of
the site (which is a sequence of pages taking you through a financial
application process) and paper prototypes have been a good starting point for
us. We also have a paper workflow between the numbered pages to illustrate the
flow of pages (since it's not strictly linear).

The VP of Marketing has a rough time using any new tool that's not trivial
(e.g. as easy as Apple Mail) and so making him learn a new tool would not be
helpful to our process. However, he can sketch his thoughts nicely.

For nicer presentation we are simply using PowerPoint. Everyone has got it and
we can take screen shots of existing pages and overlay them with simple
drawings using the PPT drawing tools.

This has been enough to work through the new design.

But thanks for the pointer to ConceptDraw, looks like Visio replacement I've
been searching for now that I use a Mac.

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joshwa
>But thanks for the pointer to ConceptDraw, looks like Visio replacement I've
been searching for now that I use a Mac.

What you really want is OmniGraffle.

<http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/>

