touchy-feely UI design
face it.... we can't get away with storyboards and user interface mockups anymore. don't get me wrong, they are not obsolete or anything, and I'm sure that many an excellent interface designer out there is still able to utilize their silver tongued gift of gab and a few hasty sketches to convince their clients that the interface they just demonstrated will work exactly as they need it to...
with tools like Dreamweaver (and a whole plethora of other wyswyg tools out there), everyone and his uncle is a html developer, thus reducing it to the category of commodity - not design though, just the coding.
Of course, if you're working inside a large company that already has strict controls on their look and feel, and you have to work with the company "wrapper" html - well, buddy - your visual design skills are of no avail :)
So.. where does this leave us? we go in, do all the analyses etc etc - then once we are done with the lowfid stuff, it's de rigeur these days to develop that hi-fidelity prototype. It does not matter if you do it, or have one of the eager beaver developers do it for you - bottom line, it seems that it needs to be done for the team and customer to buy off on the interface.
And if you are using the services of an usability lab - well, bless your heart if you think THOSE guys are willing to waste their valuable time on a cheap paper prototype. Nope - nothing but the best, slickest prototype will do.
Besides, if you're conducting a usability test or any other sort of evaluation, you dont want your clients and users to think that they aren't getting the very best in design, do you?
Is that bad then? nope, not at all.. with today's tools, it's pretty easy to make the prototype behave almost like the real thing.. trouble is that it can appear tooooooo real - the customer falls in love with it, the user falls in love with it, and hopefully, you've taken the trouble to make sure that the developers are in complete agreement with you about whether they can actually build it. And oh yes, do make sure that you talk to the hardware/infrastructure guys too. And the mid-tier folks...
or you'll end up making EVERYONE mad. and that's bad.
________________________________________________________ copyright 2004 ajoy muralidhar. all names or brands referenced are the copyright of their respective owners.
with tools like Dreamweaver (and a whole plethora of other wyswyg tools out there), everyone and his uncle is a html developer, thus reducing it to the category of commodity - not design though, just the coding.
Of course, if you're working inside a large company that already has strict controls on their look and feel, and you have to work with the company "wrapper" html - well, buddy - your visual design skills are of no avail :)
So.. where does this leave us? we go in, do all the analyses etc etc - then once we are done with the lowfid stuff, it's de rigeur these days to develop that hi-fidelity prototype. It does not matter if you do it, or have one of the eager beaver developers do it for you - bottom line, it seems that it needs to be done for the team and customer to buy off on the interface.
And if you are using the services of an usability lab - well, bless your heart if you think THOSE guys are willing to waste their valuable time on a cheap paper prototype. Nope - nothing but the best, slickest prototype will do.
Besides, if you're conducting a usability test or any other sort of evaluation, you dont want your clients and users to think that they aren't getting the very best in design, do you?
Is that bad then? nope, not at all.. with today's tools, it's pretty easy to make the prototype behave almost like the real thing.. trouble is that it can appear tooooooo real - the customer falls in love with it, the user falls in love with it, and hopefully, you've taken the trouble to make sure that the developers are in complete agreement with you about whether they can actually build it. And oh yes, do make sure that you talk to the hardware/infrastructure guys too. And the mid-tier folks...
or you'll end up making EVERYONE mad. and that's bad.
________________________________________________________ copyright 2004 ajoy muralidhar. all names or brands referenced are the copyright of their respective owners.
posted by gentlepoet @ 4/15/2004 03:03:00 PM
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