Low-fi prototyping for mobile devices

Abstract

This paper introduces a set of concepts for usercentered design methodologies that apply to mobile and multi-device applications. It ranges from initial data gathering and specification processes to the creation of low-fidelity prototypes and their evaluation. The focus is given to usability issues of ubiquitous, context and ambient intelligent applications. The paper's main contributions are (1) the description of our findings on how to engage on the early stage prototyping process, involving mobility; (2) a set of details that need to be taken into consideration so that the design and prototyping process is successful; (3) a set of guidelines on how to evaluate mobile applications on their context of use at an early design stage and (4) a rapid prototyping framework which allows designers to quickly move from their hand-drawn sketches to semi-functional software prototypes, particularly for PDAs and Smart phones.

A mobile tool for in-situ prototyping

“…Design methods, techniques and tools for mobile devices are increasingly being addressed by researchers, leading to the appearance of different approaches for a wide range of problems [4,14,15,8]. Unsurprisingly, given their differences from desktop systems, most efforts have been directed towards prototyping and evaluation.…”

“…Regarding prototyping, new techniques and orientations, particularly for low-fidelity prototypes, have been introduced [14,15]. These suggest the need for more detailed and carefully built prototypes that offer resembling pictures of final solutions and their characteristics [14], even at very early stages [17,18].…”

“…These suggest the need for more detailed and carefully built prototypes that offer resembling pictures of final solutions and their characteristics [14], even at very early stages [17,18]. In fact, it has been shown in [15] that the adopted prototyping technique can be determinant during the consequent evaluation stages, allowing users to freely interact with them, improve them and use them on realistic settings without being misled [6]. Furthermore, to evaluate different details that might be relevant at different stages of prototyping, the concept of mixed prototyping has emphasized the need to create different prototypes to evaluate different dimensions of usability [12].…”

“…However, a global consensus that has been achieved seems to point the need to take the design process, in particular prototyping and evaluation, out of the lab, into the field, where realistic settings can be used [4,3,13,14]. In order to facilitate the process, recent results have been providing guidelines that suggest how to select appropriate scenarios, material and techniques to support in-situ design [15]. In particular, main lessons suggest that besides using realistic settings, designers must aim at providing realistic usage experiences, making use of realistic prototypes [14].…”

Adapting Interaction Obtrusiveness: Making Ubiquitous Interactions Less Obnoxious. A Model Driven Engineering approach

“…De Sá and Carriço (de Sá and Carriço, 2006) showed that prototyping techniques can be determinant during the consequent evaluation stages, allowing users to freely interact with the system, improve them and use them on realistic settings without being misled. In this section, we introduce a technique for the early-stage evaluation of interaction obtrusiveness adaptation of services by means of fast-prototyping.…”