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concepts and functionality instead.
From the Field: Rough Prototypes Encourage Feedback
"My company researches and develops intelligent autonomous agents and agent-based
applications, generally for the United States government. I was about to present a set of
preliminary designs to a government research technical review committee. Previous review
meetings of this nature had left the committee with a negative view of our progress and our
willingness to involve their ideas.
"The project leader and I had initially discussed taking my paper prototype drawings and either
redrafting them or implementing mock-ups (in VB or Director) of them. Our goals were to (1)
reinforce that these designs were preliminary, (2) encourage a dialogue with the committee about
the direction of the project, and (3) get the reviewers excited about being part of the design
process and to invest some of their considerable energy and expertise into the project. After
thinking about what we hoped to get out of the review presentation, we decided to stick with the
rough drawings instead of something more polished.
"This approach was a huge success. The reviewers got very excited during the presentation and
constantly interrupted me with suggestions and meaningful critiques. Afterward we got additional
positive comments and ideas—something that had rarely happened with past projects.
Committee members specifically mentioned that the sketchy nature of drawings made them feel
included in the process.
"Three months later we presented an implemented demonstration of the application that included
a number of changes suggested by the review committee and a presentation that showed the
now-familiar design sketches next to the implemented screens. The demonstration was even a
larger success than the prior meeting. The committee members felt like part of the team and
were excited by seeing their ideas come to life. In addition, seeing the rough design sketches
presented next to the polished screen shots left them impressed by the large degree of progress
made. They left excited about the future of the project. Again, this high level of collaboration
between the research team and the review committee had been rare in the past and bodes very
well for both the quality of the final deliverable and for future funding for the research project."
Jack Zaientz, Soar Technology
My colleague Ann Marie McKinnon, a graphic designer, has experienced something similar to Joel's
Corollary Two—if it looks too pretty, people can become too attached to it. After she showed a nicely
designed set of screens to some key stakeholders, Ann Marie reported that they "fell in love" with that
particular version of the interface because it looked so nice. They subsequently resisted making any
changes to the functionality, even when the rest of the team found a clear need to do so.
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