Today’s UIEtips just came out: Looking Back on 16 Years of Paper Prototyping

The first time I learned about paper prototyping was in April of 1989. I remember it clearly, as if it was just last week. (Ironically, the things I actually did last week are a little hazy — the result of a little too much traveling and too many good meals!)

I was sitting in the (then) Austin Stouffers Hotel ballroom, listening to a great panel on involving users in design when Laurie Vertelney, then with Apple, talked about the tools they used to create early mockups of designs. During her 20-minute presentation, she went into exquisite detail, showing how Apple was using innovative improvisational techniques to put design ideas in front of users.

Leading up to that moment, I had spent the previous 10 years building interfaces and conducting usability work at a variety of companies. While we had done extensive usability testing to get users reactions to designs, it had always been after the design was implemented and running. If the design had inherent design problems, we couldn’t do anything until the next major release, often years away. The impact we were having on the design process was minimal — and all that was about to change.

Looking back on it today, Laurie’s presentation was straightforward: take an idea for a design, cobble together a pretend interface out of paper, put it in front of users, and see what happens. If she gave it today, nobody would think twice about it. Yet, in a world where everything took months (or years) to build before you got the first real user impressions, this was remarkable.

To say that presentation changed the way I worked would be a dramatic understatement. I rushed home from the conference and immediately went forward to build my first paper prototype for my current client, the Harvard Business School. Within a week, we had tested designs with a dozen or so students (who happened to be corporate CEOs in a special management-training program) and the results were stunning: we learned that the design, which we thought was downright clever, was, in fact, completely unusable. Several quick changes and an even better design emerged to everyone’s delight.

Paper prototyping quickly became a favorite tool of ours. Within a year, I had started training a dozen or so clients on the technique. A little while later, Carolyn Snyder joined UIE and, together, over the next few years, we trained more than 3,000 interface designers and developers on the intricacies of creating the prototypes. (Carolyn has subsequently written *the* book on the subject, cleverly named Paper Prototyping. I highly recommend it. Buy it here.)

Since that presentation in 1989, we’ve put together countless paper prototypes on an amazing range of designs: video conferencing systems, network performance monitors, e-commerce web sites, medical diagnostic systems, government resource libraries, and molecular modeling tools. What we’ve learned is that the tool, beyond anything else, gives us significantly more confidence about the designs we’re embarking on.

16 years hasn’t changed much. We continue to turn to the tool, time and time again. Just yesterday, I found myself recommending it to a client to solve their current design problems. It would be a safe bet that I’ll recommend it a dozen more times before the year is out. I’ve always wondered if Laurie knew that she had that much impact on someone’s career.

In today’s UIEtips issue, I talk about some of the lessons we’ve learned from practicing this technique for 16 years. What’s new and what’s still the same? I found looking back on our experience to be fun and I think you’ll enjoy the article.

Have you tried using paper prototypes? How has it affected your design process? Did you find it successful? I’d love to know. Pop me a message at mailbag@uie.com. (If you don’t want us to share your message in a future UIEtips, just mention that in the email.)

We continue to train people today on creating paper prototypes with a wonderful course: Product Usability: Survival Techniques. If you haven’t had a chance to take this class, there’s still a little room left for Christine Perfetti’s session at the User Interface 10 conference. The session is great fun: you actually work with classmates to build a fully working prototype that you test with real users. The team who builds the most usable interface wins fabulous prizes. It’s a great chance to learn the technique hands-on, under Christine’s expert guidance.

p.s. If you’re thinking about Christine’s class (or any of the other great sessions at UI10), you definitely want to sign up by August 2, to take advantage of the great pricing we now have. See the conference site for more details.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Letters, Usability Toolbox . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.