Interaction Design Foundation
Free educational materials - made by the world's technology elite
 
Join us on Linkedin
Join us on Twitter
Join us on Google plus
Get our RSS Feed
 
 
ReferencesNavigation arrowAuthorsNavigation arrowChristopher Thurrott
Jun 19

“ ... there are no simple 'right' answers for most web design questions (at least not for the important ones). What works is good, integrated design that fills a need--carefully thought out, well executed, and tested. ”

-- Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think, p. 136

 
 

Featured chapter

Read the fascinating history of Wearable Computing, told by its father, Steve Mann

Read Steve's chapter !

 
 

Latest books

The Social Design of Technical Systems: Building technologies for communities
by Brian Whitworth and Adnan Ahmad

 
Start reading

The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed.
by Mads Soegaard and Rikke Friis Dam

 
Start reading
 
 

Help us help you!

 
 

Christopher Thurrott

Picture of Christopher Thurrott. Copyright unknown.
Add description
Add publication

Publications by Christopher Thurrott (bibliography)

 what's this?
1992
 
Edit | Del

Wiklund, Michael E., Thurrott, Christopher and Dumas, Joseph S. (1992): Does the Fidelity of Software Prototypes Affect the Perception of Usability?. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 36th Annual Meeting 1992. pp. 399-403.

“The objective of this study was to investigate whether the aesthetic refinement of a software prototype is related to subjects' ratings of the usability of the prototype. We purchased a commercially available electronic device offering the functions of dictionary, calculator, and thesaurus (hereafter referred to as the Dictionary). We created four user interface prototypes of the Dictionary using line art, half-tone, gray scale, and color images of the product. The prototypes varied in the degree to which the displayed image resembled the physical look of the real product in terms of depth, tone, color, etc. All of the prototypes were interactive in that subjects could, with a mouse, make the prototypes operate like the Dictionary. Five groups of ten subjects each then made their ratings and performed tasks using either one of the prototypes or the Dictionary. The subjects rated ease of learning and use, forgiveness of mistakes, and aesthetics for the version they used, before and after performing tasks. Subjects who used a prototype also repeated a task using the real product and compared the two in terms of similarity of interaction and aesthetics. The results indicated that the aesthetic quality of prototypes within the range we varied did not bias users for or against the prototype's perceived usability. However, we learned that half-tone prototypes should be avoided when their coarse shadings decrease legibility. In addition, we found that making prototypes mimic the response time of a product or a design concept is important. When the real product produces slower response times, prototype performance may give an overly optimistic picture of the product's usability.”

© All rights reserved Wiklund et al. and/or Human Factors Society

 
Add publication
Show list on your website
 
 

Join the technology elite and advance:

 
1.

Your career

 
2.

Your network

 
 3.

Your skills

 
 
 
 
 
 

Changes to this page (author)

26 Jun 2007: Added

Page Information

Page maintainer: The Editorial Team
URL: http://www.interaction-design.org/references/authors/christopher_thurrott.html
Jun 19

“ ... there are no simple 'right' answers for most web design questions (at least not for the important ones). What works is good, integrated design that fills a need--carefully thought out, well executed, and tested. ”

-- Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think, p. 136

 
 

Featured chapter

Read the fascinating history of Wearable Computing, told by its father, Steve Mann

Read Steve's chapter !

 
 

Latest books

The Social Design of Technical Systems: Building technologies for communities
by Brian Whitworth and Adnan Ahmad

 
Start reading

The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed.
by Mads Soegaard and Rikke Friis Dam

 
Start reading
 
 

Help us help you!

 
 
 
 
About | Press kit / Media kit | Copyright/IP Policy | General Terms of Use / General Site Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy

How to help | Site Map

RSS Subscribe through an RSS feed
 
.