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course of the rounds of mockup interviews the team moves from rough representations to
wireframes with increasing detail, to on-line clickable prototypes—possibly with a visual
design treatment so that can be tested as well.
Prototypes get more and more realistic as structure, layout, and user value are estab-
lished. When prototyping for mobile devices or for product concepts that cross platforms
we need to test on all platforms and situations to see how the flow from platform to plat-
form works. For low-level user interaction, especially for touch interfaces, a working pro-
totype that runs on the target platform may be essential to really see what is happening in
those momentary interactions. But it is still best for the initial prototypes to be in paper
because they encourage change—they invite the user into the conversation about overall
product value, high level function, base interaction paradigm, and other elements of core
structure.
After two rounds of testing (with a redesign pass after each round to address the issues
found in each round), it is helpful to do a Cool Drilldown review of the design. As with
storyboards and with visioning, doing the work of test and redesign requires the team to
focus on the many details of the design. It is inevitable that they will get lost in the de-
tails. A review process at this point reinforces a structural view—it rebuilds their sense of
the overall product and user interface structure and gives the team perspective on whether
they could address the Cool Concepts better. This shift in perspective forces them out of
the weeds and gives them a framework for coming to the design afresh. Revisions to the
design from this Cool Drilldown can be folded into the next round of mockup interviews.
We find that three rounds of testing are generally enough. After three rounds, the team
has finalized the structure of the product, the basic interaction design, the content type
and tone, any navigation structure or information architecture, and has clarified any busi-
ness rules. The third round usually starts testing detailed user interface and interaction
paradigms that are hard to test in paper, so it may need to be online. The third round
can also include a preliminary visual design. These interviews may be remote—after two
rounds of face-to-face testing in paper, a third round of remote interviews can work well.
Finally, a highly interactive design may benefit from a fourth round to ensure the visual
design and touch interactions really work.
In an Agile process the third round of design may overlap with the first round of devel-
opment—the online prototype may in fact be the first iteration ofdevelopment work.From
thatpointforwardtheUXdesignersandcodersshouldworkinatightpartnership,withthe
developers passing working code to UX designers and UX designers passing feedback and
new designs to developers [ 8 ] .
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