Stephanie Houde

What do Prototypes Prototype

Publisher Summary Prototypes are widely recognized to be a core means of exploring and expressing designs for interactive computer artifacts. Choosing the right kind of more focused prototype to build is an art in itself, and communicating its limited purposes to its various audiences is a critical aspect of its use. Current terminology for describing prototypes centers on attributes of prototypes themselves that can be distracting. Tools can be used in many different ways, and detail is not a sure indicator of completion. This chapter proposes a change in the language used to talk about prototypes, to focus more on fundamental questions about the interactive system being designed. The goal of this chapter is to establish a model that describes any prototype in terms of the artifact being designed rather than the prototypes incidental attributes. By focusing on the purpose of the prototype—that is, what it prototypes—better decisions can be made about the kinds of prototypes to build. With a clear purpose for each prototype, prototypes can be better used to think and communicate about design. This chapter begins by describing current difficulties in communicating about prototypes: the complexity of interactive systems; issues of multi-disciplinary teamwork; and the audiences of prototypes. The chapter introduces the model and illustrates it with some initial examples of prototypes from real projects. The chapter concludes with a summary of the main implications of the model for prototyping practice.

In search of design principles for tools and practices to support communication within a learning community

The Newspaper provides a web-based presentation of news in a classic newspaper format. Community members contribute stories by simply sending email to an address dedicated to the newspaper. Software running on a server automatically stores, formats and re-displays the senders mail as an HTML news article. The newspaper can thus be viewed from any web browser. In addition, the frontpage of the Newspaper is projected on a wall in a communal lounge area which can be viewed conveniently by all community members who pass through the area during the course of their workday, as well as during tea time, a daily scheduled time when people gather in the lounge area.

Working towards rich and flexible file representations

T’oday, icons are commonly used to represent files. In recent years, they have become increasingly more expressive. Initially, in command line systems, text labels alone were used to identify files. With the introduction of graphical user interfaces, generic document and application icons were inutxtuced (see fig la). Over the years, file icons took on an appcamnce that reflects the application usd to crwted them (ltig lb). More rtxently, some applications (e.g. Adobe’s P’hotoshop, Apple’s QuickTime MoviePlayer) produce file icons that serve as proxies[2] of the document’s contents (Fig. lc). These proxies are essentially visual miniatures of the document. There are, however, other types of proxies possible. This paper builds on the recognized trend toward towards information-rich icons. It provides several examples Otfhow systems can emphasize a file’s unique characteristics and thereby facilitate the often necessary task of browsing.

In search of design principles for programming environments

Software development environments are becoming progressively more advanced in their support for construction of large software applications. However, it is still tedious and time consuming for programmers to build even simple applications. This paper describes an exploratory study which identifies some common problems experienced by programmers working with a range of currently available tools. Eight professional programmers were observed while each built the same simple application using a different !software development environment. Problems encountered during the authoring process were noted, Four categories of common problems emerged. Design principles implied by these categories are suggested.

Developing a community intranet: social practices and technology interventions

How can learning and communication within communities be improved through the use of new technologies and practices? To answer this question, we investigated how members of small communities learn from each other during the course of their normal activities. We discovered that we needed to facilitate casual communication of current information and events without causing a lot of work for community members. To this end, we developed and deployed a working prototype of a community intranet, and evolved associated social practices.