What is a prototype?

A prototype is a rough mock-up of your current approach to your project (be it for a website, an interactive, or something else). It doesn’t have to be full of content. In fact, we often test with a mixture of guide content and lorem ipsum placeholder text, and it's not unheard of to have a totally black and white prototype with boxes instead of images.

Why make a prototype?

Prototyping has some big advantages. It helps us plan how the screens will work functionally, as well as graphically. By testing a protoype with users, we can quickly identify where we're going right and where we're going wrong, whilst there is still time to make changes. Wherever possible we test version one with users, make changes and then test version two. Often this rapid approach will be done between a morning and afternoon session, allowing us to take great strides in a single day's work.

How do we build a prototype?

There are loads of ways to prototype your ideas to test with users. Quite often our earliest thoughts will be sketches on paper, and we'll quickly move to a graphical tool like OmniGraffle to mock pages up quickly. Software like this allows us to give the prototype clickable areas like a real website or interactive. This is really valuable for user testing.

How do the user testing sessions work?

The approach depends on the project requirements. One approach we find productive for some projects is for key members of the client and Cogapp teams to observe the sessions at our in-house usability studio. From the observation room, the teams can see what happening on screen in real time, hear what's being said and see the participant. In here we have large sheets of paper with the key areas to be covered in the testing. When the observers see or hear something pertinent, they are encouraged to write it down on a sticky note and attach it to the relevant piece of paper. At the end of the session, we go through the sticky notes, each of which is effectively an action point for development, and come to a consensus on how to resolve. Other approaches we have taken include testing with people in their own homes; asking users to look at the prototype in their own time and send us feedback via a questionnaire;  testing at clients offices.

What are the outputs of the sessions?

All sessions are recorded using Morae usability software. We can output these files as video, which is particularly useful for clients that can't make it to the sessions, for example if they are based abroad. It also acts as a handy reference for us if we need to look back to the sessions further into the project. The tangible output of the user testing session might be as simple as a list of action points, or it may be as detailed as a comprehensive report with transcriptions of each session. The impact user testing has on our development process and the end product is immeasurable. By testing early, we can iron out problems before spending time and money developing them. We can tweak any areas that need it and we can gather expert opinion from our end users. All of this adds up to an engaging, user-centred, effective piece of digital media.