Making a Paper Prototype - Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Define and Refine User Interfaces - page 65

Representing the Users' Choices
You might be wondering how important it is to accurately represent the state of each radio button, list,
selection, and so on. Usually it's pretty important because otherwise you're asking the users (not to
mention the Computer and the observers) to remember all their choices. This cognitive effort makes the
task harder and can result in artificial confusion. Sometimes it's also possible to miss subtle problems
unless you have responded to all the user's actions in the exact order they happened.
Figure 4.16 shows a prototype of a screen used to create a rule for filtering email. As the user selects
each Condition and Action, the Computer writes it on removable tape and places it at the bottom. Note
that the removable tape initially says, "where the from line contains people." After the user clicks on the
link and selects a name from the address book, the Computer places another piece of tape on top of
the word people to show the selected name. In this manner the user sees the rule being built one
component at a time, much as it would appear on a computer. Because many actions are possible on
this screen and they can be done in any order, the pieces of removable tape at the bottom help
everyone keep track of exactly what the user has done.
Figure 4.16: As the user specifies each component of the mail filtering rule, the Computer writes it
on pieces of removable tape so that all the user's actions, in the sequence they happened, are
shown in the interface.
You might also be wondering how hard it is for the Computer to remember each correct response. The
good news is that I believe it's probably easier to make and use a paper prototype than to read about
how to do it. The Computer is usually someone directly involved in the design and thus knows a lot
about it. As explained in Chapter 7 , the Computer practices the tasks before the first usability test, and
this also helps. (As a consultant, I have helped product teams make paper prototypes of many
interfaces that I initially knew nothing about. After watching a few run-throughs, I usually learn enough
about how the interface works that I could be Computer if necessary.)