On Apr 16, 2008, at 9:00 AM, Switzky, Andrew wrote: > I love your definition of a prototype: A prototype needs to have some > type of sequence, the ability to move from one state/screen/page to > another, or the ability to simulate moving from one point/state/screen > to another point/state/screen.
This is an unsatisfying definition. Behavior is not reduced to a sequence. To think so is a web page model of thinking. That mode of operation never was the genesis of "interaction" in software design. The genesis was always applications, and more so the early software apps like MS Word and Wordstar back before graphical interfaces became popular, but even more so once something like MacPaint and MacWrite hit the market. Behavior is just that: behavior. It's interactive, however that expresses itself. Sometimes it a sequence, but in the near future as technology catches us back up to where we were in the late 1980s, it won't be sequential at all. Example: How is a modeless palette that updates and changes based on selection a "sequence" of anything? And yet, that sort of widget is one of the most interactive things in desktop software. Uday's definition is far more appropriate. A prototype is a behavioral representation of the final product, at varying degrees of fidelity (from skeletal to rich). A sequence can work sometimes as a prototype, but more often than not, it fails at being a very good prototype, and it especially falls down on learning any truly useful information from it when put in front of real customers. Unless of course the product is a non-Ajaxified web site. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
