>From Janna > We are creating paper prototypes for a change in software. We want to keep them "sketchy" looking for obvious reasons. > > My colleague felt we should use a font such as chalkboard or comic sans to keep the loose and sketchy feeling and won't look like a finished interface.
> My response is to use something like Arial or Myriad since it no longer has any particular connotations and people won't have any reaction to it positively or negatively. I've just come back from HCI2008 at Liverpool, where Beryl Plimmer presented a paper on exactly this topic: Louise Yeung, Beryl Plimmer, Brenda Lobb & Douglas Elliffe: Effect of Fidelity in Diagram Presentation The paper should be in the ACM library at some point, possibly even already, but here's a quick summary meantime. They were interested in this conundrum: - people comment more usefully on prototypes that look 'sketchy' and unfinished, e.g. on paper - they react most positively to prototypes that look tidy and finished on computer. The challenge: is there a 'sweet spot' of that combines a level of scrappiness, to promote useful comments, and a level of 'finished'-ness, to create something that people like to look at? The answer: no, there is no sweet spot. They tested a series of five versions of the same stuff (a form, as it happens) ranging from actual paper, a paper-like version on a tablet PC, and then three further levels of polish. All contained a range of introduced defects. The changes included moving from handwritten, through a handwriting-type font, an informal font, and 'polished' fonts such as Arial. The responses were about as straight-line as you can get. Paper: most defects. Most polished on computer: most preferred. The only mild difference from the straight line was that paper was slightly preferred over the paper-like representation on a tablet PC. Bottom line: if you want users to give you substantive comments on a prototype, things like whether it has the right functionality, then use as sketchy a design as you possibly can. If you want then to report of things like whether they like it and the colours you have used, then use as polished a design as you possibly can. Further bottom line (before I get the prototyping police frothing at the mouth): a clear limitation of this research is that participants were reacting to static prototypes not interactive (as can be seen from the title i.e. 'diagram'). I suspect, but don't know, that the paper might lose its slight advantage over a paper-like presentation on tablet PC if the prototype was more than a single page and there was an element of interaction. Anyone up for doing some further research? Best Caroline Jarrett ________________________________________________________________ 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
