
Coding Horror: UI-First Software Development - inklesspen
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001091.html
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henning
Quotes from Jef Raskin on this:

    
    
        * Once the product's task is known, design the interface first; then implement to the interface design.
    
        * Users do not care about what is inside the box, as long as the box does what they need done.
    
        * As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.

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sanj
It is more than 'paper prototypes' -- you actually need to know how the system
should work, from the users' point of view.

Ben Cchneiderman (<http://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/>) took this a step further in
1987: design the documentation first:

Shneiderman, B. (1987), Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective
Human-Computer Interaction. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

I referenced the technique in my thesis, and proposed it for aircraft
autoflight systems!

[http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/1721.1/37310/1/ICAT-2000-3.p...](http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/1721.1/37310/1/ICAT-2000-3.pdf)

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c1sc0
I introduced paper prototyping at the place where I was working & it's amazing
how much it can help you define your product. It's a great way to side-step
the feature-bloat trap at the specification phase in waterfall development. We
focussed on finding out what _not_ to build. I work in a pretty risk-averse
environment & was surprised how well it was received.

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edw519
It really gets interesting when you do it on wallpaper. I usually use the 30"
brown wrapping paper from CVS or Wallgreen's, a lot of duct tape or masking
tape, and different colored markers. Much better than a white board because
someone gets to keep it.

Just this week, a client called me in to review a wallpaper prototype I did
for him 2 years ago. He posted the whole thing in another room, gathered his
team, and said, "Let's get started on this."

Funny, everybody in this week's session who was also in the first session
looked at the paper and vividly remembered that day, even the food we ate
while we did that.

