HCI 432 Group Project: Partial Prototypes

HCI 432: User-Centered Interactive Web Development

Winter 2001

Group Project: Partial Prototypes

Due Tuesday March 6

Overview

Your group will prepare working horizontal and vertical prototypes for user testing.

Assignment goals

Establish test objectives.
Create working partial prototypes with javascript.
Use low fidelity prototypes with paper and pencel.

Low Fidelity Prototyping

You will initially focus on critical aspects of your web site's design. These include your site's main page since most users will visit your site through this page. Other critical pages include those that require the most interaction from the user. That is, pages with interactive components.

Create low-fidelity prototypes, using paper and pencil, of your main page and at least one other page involving interactive components. If you have several such pages, you may choose one that you designated as the most critical (see your user and task analysis).

Establishing test objectives

With your paper prototypes, establish a list of task scenarios and a list of potential problems that a user might encounter when performing that task. List at least one task and two possible problems for each page prototype. Your test objectives are to determine whether users will actually experience these problems. Further refine your tasks so that you can present them as usability tests.

Testing the paper prototypes

While in class, test your paper prototypes with at least three other class mates. You may iteratively revise your prototypes while conducting your tests.

Preparation for next week

Using your results from the paper prototyping, revise your prototypes and, if appropriate, your test objectives and tasks. With HTML and Javascript, implement a running prototype that has a horizontal component (the main page with all of the links) and a vertical component (your interactive page with live links leading to it).

Submission

Submit a document with the following:

Revised test objectives and tasks.
Copies of revised paper prototypes.

Also, your working prototypes should be ready to go by class time March 6.

Grading

Full credit will be awarded to complete and well-edited reports, with the expectation that the working prototypes will be available by class time.