Paper Prototyping

Purpose & Objectives

As a part of user-centred design we use paper prototyping to create a paper representation of the digital product currently being designed. This is being done by drawing sketches or crafting printed materials to guide our designs and study users' reaction to these.

The main purpose is to communicate ideas between the various stakeholders e.g. developers and designers.

When used early in the process it can help uncover design-related issues before going further in the development. It’s also used as a usability testing tool. Before creating the platform one can use the paper prototype to check how the user would interact with a potential version of it.

Data Sources

The information to inform the paper prototyping is often derived from workshops and focus groups.

Procedure

Paper prototyping is very flexible, easily accessible, adaptable and cheap. It only requires very few tools, only pencil and pens, paper and scissors.

First, the portion of the functionality being tested is sketched on paper. It is then presented to users and their feedback is noted. According to this feedback, the sketch is updated.

Pros & Cons

+ Cheap

+ Accessible to anyone, not many tools needed

+ Easily changeable according to feedback

+ Feedback can be given easily by participants through writing on the prototype

- Can be time consuming

- More work required as prototype can't be directly used for later design

- Testing and collaborating on a prototype can't be done remotely

- Design not as realistic