Artifact: User-Interface Prototype
 User-Interface Prototype |
A user-interface
prototype is a prototype of the user interface. For example, the
prototype can manifest itself as:
|
| Worker: | User-Interface Designer |
| More information: | Guidelines: User-Interface (General) |
| Input to Activities: | Output from Activities: |
Purpose
The following workers use the user-interface prototype:
- use-case specifiers, to understand the user interface for a use case;
- system analysts, to understand how the user interface impacts the analysis of the system;
- designers, to understand how the user interface impacts and what it requires from the "inside" of the system;
- those who test the classes, to plan testing activities.
Properties
You can make three basic kinds of prototypes:
- Drawings (on paper)
- Bitmaps (drawing tool)
- Executables (interactive)
In most projects, you should use all three prototypes, in the order listed above.
Timing
The user-interface prototype is built early, during inception or in the beginning of the elaboration phase, and before the whole system (including its "real" user interface) is analyzed, designed, and implemented.
Note that the main purpose of creating a user-interface prototype is to be able to expose and test both the functionality and the usability of the system before the real design and development starts. This way, you can ensure that you are building the right system, before you spend too much time and resources on development.
In order to achieve this early testing follows that the prototype must be significantly cheaper to develop than the real system, while having enough capabilities to be able to support a meaningful use test.
Responsibility
A user-interface designer is responsible for the integrity of the user-interface prototype, ensuring that the prototype contributes to a usable user interface according to the requirements from use-case storyboards and boundary objects.
