Keywords
prototyping, interaction design, visual design, participatory design, industrial design, non standard user
interfaces
PANELIST STATEMENTS
Stephanie Houde: Targeting Improvements for Interaction Design Tools
Producing a novel high quality product interface requires that designers consider many aspects of a users
experience. Some factors are emotional, some are representational, others are contextual and some are
functional.
Currently available tools do not facilitate interaction designers building different kinds of prototypes at
different levels of resolution sufficiently. As we explore improvements the following problems should be
considered:
(1) The capture bottleneck: During the initial stages of a design, designers typically hold brainstorming
sessions in which ideas are drawn on whiteboards. Individuals also make rough notes and sketches in their
drawing pads. It is difficult to capture notes from a non computer medium to get them onto the computer
medium. (2) Managing components: As a design progresses many prototypes are produced which address
various aspects of the user experience. It becomes increasingly difficult to integrate solutions and relate
them to each other. (3) Managing collaboration: It becomes increasingly difficult to integrate the work of
individuals with the collective work as a design progresses. Collaborators need to see each others work as
well as to have access to editing their part separately. (4) Designing dynamics: Motion and transitions are an
integral part of a visual interactive experience. Without easy access to designing visuals in dynamic forms,
only limited new interaction designs can be achieved.
Raghu Kolli: Designing user interfaces for physical products
My perspective is that of an interaction designer who is faced with the task of designing and prototyping the
'hard' and 'soft' user interfaces for physical products like copiers, VCRs, cashier machines and similar
products.
During the conceptual design phase, a designer needs the flexibility to "try-out" different layout
arrangements of interface elements on the product body and substitute a given element with an equivalent
form. At some stage, the designer may want to apply global stylistic changes to all the elements, for instance
change protruding oval buttons to soft touch buttons. When the conceptual design is evolved sufficiently, a
designer needs to simulate the functionality (for some complex products) with real hardware with help from
the engineering team.
How much of this activity does current tools support? Firstly, designers make a lot of sketches to show
different layout arrangement and styles using pencils and marker pens. There are hardly any user interface
tools that provide a good set of paint tools to work with a pressure sensitive digitzer tablet. Elements like
knobs cannot be moved around freely because the designer may have used a spline construction technique
or a boolean operation that does not permit this flexibility. A library of standard elements is not always of
much use because placement of such standard elements on a curved surface or an angular surface will
require special construction which restricts manipulation. Animation tool based or authoring tool based
simulation techniques work pretty well only for small hand-held products like telephones and remote
controllers. The area is wide open for potential tool development and research.
Aaron Marcus: Case Studies of Future Tools
Over 12 years of user interface prototyping experience and 7 years of multimedia prototyping experience
we realized several missing features of available prototyping tools. Many of the existing tools do not
provide templates or paradigms editing metaphors, mental models, and navigation. Since some standard
components are known, we believe that advanced tools would offer palettes that would provide reasonable
choices with the ability to revise detailed characteristics much as one might be given a standard palette and
be able select or tune colors, then apply them to a variety of objects. We would plan to show show case
studies of different approaches to non-standard user interface design and to describe the way new tools
might have assisted the development process.
Michael Muller: Creation of Software or of Understanding? (or both?)
The word "prototyping" has come to have many meanings. Many prototyping approaches focus on a
powerful and efficient artifact. The concern is to develop an object (usually software). Considerations for
communication generally take the form of the prototyper's ability to express her or his ideas so that they are
quickly instantiated as a computer system. This model of prototyping activity is usually solitary. The tone
or manner of the activity is one of command or declaration. The goal is to give a specific idea form. The
result is often a single idea (or a tightly related set of ideas), whose value is in the completeness of its
explication.
An alternative approach to prototyping focuses on broad and deep experiences of differing human
perspectives. The concern is to develop shared understandings. Considerations for communication take the
form of social processes that are designed to promote two-way or multi-way interpersonal interactions;
these interactions include not only ideas about the design, but individuals' and groups' stakes and risks in the
outcome. This model of prototyping is necessarily social. The tone or manner of the activity is one of
democratic exchange. The goal is to explore one anothers' contributions and concerns. The result is often
multiple ideas (or sets of ideas) whose value is in their ability to generate further thought and understanding
of human and technological processes. surrounding their use.
Of course, neither of these styles or modes of prototyping is sufficient by itself. Neither is "good" or "bad."
The purpose of these remarks is to explore one continuum in the polysemous conceptions of "prototyping,"
and to encourage all of us to consider how to balance between extremes, how to navigate along the
continuum.
Kevin Mullet: Sorry, but You Still Have to Program to do Anything Interesting
The ideal prototyping environment will provide *multiple, parallel, synchronized representations* of the
underlying semantic elements. Each representation supports some editing tasks or type of users better than
others, so the ability to *choose the most appropriate representation* for any editing problem is absolutely
essential. The tool must provide a *well structured environment*, within which both the structure of the
application being created and that of the prototyping tool itself are at once clear and obvious.
The tool must also provide a *robust, yet lightweight encapsulation/extension mechanism* in order to
promote re-use of elements across prototypes and the availability of "off the shelf" components. At the same
time, however, an effective tool must provide for *flexible, fine-grained, integrated media editing and
management* in order to adequately support the simulation of novel interface styles that go beyond the
"look and feel" of existing UI toolkits. Perhaps most importantly, the ideal tool must provide the
*scaleability* needed to support the *series of prototypes* at successively greater levels of sophistication
that inevitably evolves into the finished product. The ideal prototyping tool will provide representations that
trade expressiveness for accessability and place the premium (properly) on expertise in the task domain
rather than in software engineering.
Stephanie Houde is designing a tool to enable visual desingers to act as co-authors of interactive multimedia
at Apple Computers Advanced Technology Group. Aaron Marcus is founder of Aaron Marcus and
Associates. Kevin Mullet is dealing with multimedia authoring at Macromedia. Michael Muller is
participatory design expert at US WEST. Rahgu Kolli is Assistant Professor at Delft University of
Technology at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.
