prototyping

UX/IxD terminology: Prototype

Okay, I've heard lots of words around here that I think we all have
different meanings to us personally. The one that seems to be currently
messing up a few of us in one thread is the word "prototype", so let's start
with that.

To me, a prototype is a scaled down model of what you want things to look
like. I think what's messing us up the most is that it's too general of a
term and could be used to describe just about anything we do at any point.

I'll break down some of the terminology I use with the client and you can
agree or disagree from there.

prototypes are software and belong to engineers?

I was reading that transcript that Gabriel pointed to earlier today: (link:
)

here is the last question's answer:
"Coop[er]: Bad idea. Prototypes are software. I believe that there's a role
for prototypes in interaction design, but I believe it's a very small and
limited role. It's primarily done as a narrative, not as software. The risk
of doing interaction design in a medium of code is much greater than the
benefits yield for you.

Paper is not a prototyping tool

On Nov 4, 2007, at 6:39 PM, KS Wang wrote:

> Paper! ... Good for drafting out, materialising and visualising the
> ideas I have
> in mind, before moving on the the standards like Visio, Omni Graffe

Paper is not a prototyping tool. It's a design tool. It's a sketching
tool. It's a way to get ideas directly from one's brain into the
world with as little information loss as possible. But it's not a
prototyping tool.

[plug] Prototyping and other classes in NYC

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Methods for prototyping thick applications

Hello all,

I'm in the process of designing my first major "thick" application( yay! ),
and have run into something of a brick wall in figuring out how to prototype
it. It's a fairly smart client that is less for creating content and more
for managing it, with a database backend. I'm comfortable with paper
prototypes, but I know at some point I'm going to need to go beyond that.

The problem is I don't know how far beyond paper prototypes I need to go.