INTERACTION DESIGN: beyond human-computer interaction, 3rd Edition

Chapter 11

DESIGN, PROTOTYPING, AND CONSTRUCTION

• 11.1 Introduction
• 11.2 Prototyping and Construction
• 11.3 Conceptual Design: Moving from Requirements to First Design
• 11.4 Physical Design: Getting Concrete
• 11.5 Using Scenarios in Design
• 11.6 Using Prototypes in Design
• 11.7 Support for Design

Objectives

The main aims of this chapter are to:

• Describe prototyping and different types of prototyping activities.
• Enable you to produce simple prototypes from the models developed during the requirements activity.
• Enable you to produce a conceptual model for a product and justify your choices.
• Explain the use of scenarios and prototypes in design.
• Discuss a range of support available for interaction design.

11.1 Introduction

Design activities begin once some requirements have been established. The design emerges iteratively, through repeated design–evaluation–redesign cycles involving users. Broadly speaking, there are two types of design: conceptual and physical. The former is concerned with developing a conceptual model that captures what the product will do and how it will behave, while the latter is concerned with details of the design such as screen and menu structures, icons, and graphics. We discussed physical design issues relating to different types of interface in Chapter 6 and so we do not return to this in detail here, but refer back to Chapter 6 as appropriate.

For users to evaluate the design of an interactive product effectively, designers must prototype their ideas. ...