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Summary
One of the fascinating things about usability tests, whether or not they use paper prototypes, is how
often product teams are surprised by what they learn. The team usually has many questions going into
the usability study—and maybe even some accurate predictions about where the problems will lie—but
the real value in usability testing lies in its ability to surprise the product team with answers to questions
they never would have thought to ask.
As the saying goes, it's not the rattlesnake you see that will bite you. It's inherently difficult to know
where your own blind spots are—usability testing helps you find them. Many of the problems described
in these case studies would have had a detrimental effect on the success of the product, and in some
cases the entire company, had they not been found before release.
As powerful as usability testing is, a paper prototype leverages that power one step further by letting
you gain all that knowledge even earlier in the project, before implementation. Although all the problems
described in this chapter could have been found by testing a working version of the interface, the
product teams were glad they didn't have to wait until then.
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