Kathy Sierra has a wonderful article about matching the fidelity of our work to the feedback we’re seeking:

When we show a work-in-progress (like an alpha release) to the public, press, a client, or boss… we’re setting their expectations. And we can do it one of three ways: dazzle them with a polished mock-up, show them something that matches the reality of the project status, or stress them out by showing almost nothing and asking them to take it “on faith” that you’re on track.

The bottom line:
How ‘done’ something looks should match how ‘done’ something is.

This is very similar to what Bill Buxton said last month, when he talked about sketches and how they change the feedback the designer collects.

Carolyn Snyder’s book on Paper Prototyping is a required read on this topic too. (And the topic of an upcoming UIE Virtual Seminar.)

This entry was posted on Friday, December 29th, 2006 at 6:20 pm and is filed under 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.