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Design Reviews
There can be considerable benefit to product teams in using a paper prototype to walk through the
tasks themselves, without users. I'm going to distinguish between two types of walkthroughs—an
internal walkthrough,
which is used to prepare the prototype (and team) for usability testing, and a
design review,
where the paper prototype is used as a means of discussing the interface with
stakeholders. You may hear these terms used differently than I've defined them here, and to some
extent they are overlapping concepts. This section briefly discusses design reviews; the rest of the
chapter focuses on internal walkthroughs.
Many of my clients have told me that just the process of creating tasks and the paper prototype made
them look at the interface differently—even before the first usability test, it's already been a useful
exercise. Some product teams create paper prototypes and use them internally in design reviews,
without ever conducting usability tests. A paper prototype can spur productive discussion, especially for
those who may have difficulty visualizing the behavior of an interface from a specification. Design
reviews using a paper prototype enable the product team to see the interface from a fresh
perspective—they'll notice annoyances like cumbersome switching back and forth between two screens
or a link that's missing. They may also identify larger issues, such as a missing requirement. Although
design reviews are not a substitute for usability testing, they can help product teams identify and fix
problems in the interface. So consider taking a paper prototype to your next interface review meeting.
From the Field: Paper Prototypes as a Design Aid
"One of our interfaces is used in an operating room to record data on cardiac implants. The path to get
to one screen was too long given the time available to enter the data dictated by the doctor during the
procedure. It's also challenging when the user has to enter data on multiple devices. Paper prototypes
allow us to lay out a screen-by-screen process flow and identify where we may consolidate screens and
tweak the order of screen progression."
Phillip Hash, Principal Human Factors Engineer, HiddenMind
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