In “Interacting with Paper,” Bill Buxton proposes paper prototyping which he calls ‘paper interfaces’ as an alternative and a better solution to testing user experiences before starting the design process. The author suggests that paper holds powerful affordances that represent systems of control that users respond to and experience, both in terms of a sketch’s control over users’ actions (control commands) as well as its faculty to lead users to focus on the ‘experience’ and ‘usability’ of an interface rather than on its aesthetic feel or design. This ‘low-tech’ method is useful for finding flaws and understanding the mechanism of an interface during the ideation process.
Buxton walks the reader through the process of sketching user experiences. With paper prototyping, interfaces are rough sketches that explain the ideation phase which helps test-users provide appropriate feedback with no misunderstanding as to whether form follows function or the reverse. Buxton introduces 3 different instances of user testing: paper prototyping (static), paper prototyping (dynamic, here testers replace the next sketch responding to user action), and on screen sketches (also dynamic, using Director, Flash, etc.).
Paper prototyping can be used for: user presentation of concept, informal testing, and usability testing. Buxton insists on the importance of understanding the What, How, When, Where, and Why of sketching user experiences for: ease of use, forgiveness of errors, and aesthetics.
Since a single design can often be a barrier to what a user experiences and how he decides to respond, and to draw the line between design and usability engineering, Buxton offers pointers when testing for incremental improvement:
– know that you “may not be able to trust [user] ratings”;
– present users with a low-cost (non-drafted) interface;
– provide and explore alternative layouts of a same interface;
– test a group of users for all those sketches and other groups for individual sketches, then compare the results; and
– get the design right and the right design.