WEBVTT 00:00:02.800 --> 00:00:07.938 If you're looking at novel solutions, then  paper prototyping is a great way of starting. 00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:16.047 This is a relatively short segment on paper  prototyping, 00:00:16.047 --> 00:00:19.912 which is something that I don't think people really take very seriously, 00:00:19.912 --> 00:00:22.523 but they should do. It's a wonderful approach. 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:30.223 It's very *cheap and easy to do* – so, low technology, low cost; 00:00:30.223 --> 00:00:34.769 can be done at the *very early stages* of design and development; 00:00:34.769 --> 00:00:39.453 *easy to create modify and animate* because you do all that by hand. 00:00:39.453 --> 00:00:42.527 It *avoids distractions with superficial detail*; 00:00:42.527 --> 00:00:47.675 a fixation that that button is too large or it's too small or it's too blue or what have you. 00:00:47.675 --> 00:00:51.557 It *prevents* the you-must-be-very-nearly-finished impression that 00:00:51.557 --> 00:00:56.505 sometimes customers get when  you're showing them higher-fidelity mockups, 00:00:56.505 --> 00:01:02.186 without them realizing there's an awful lot of work that still needs to be done behind the screens. 00:01:02.186 --> 00:01:07.170 It's very much less intimidating to users.  Users really do get that you're trying things out, 00:01:07.170 --> 00:01:11.261 and obviously they're quite keen to give you  useful feedback. 00:01:11.261 --> 00:01:17.157 And tied up with that is the whole aspect that it just looks much more malleable, 00:01:17.157 --> 00:01:21.338 much more unfinished than any form of screen markup. 00:01:21.338 --> 00:01:25.116 So, as a concept, it's quite wonderful, 00:01:25.116 --> 00:01:27.692 but we don't do enough of it. 00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:36.519 It's not something you would actually do in an  area where you're *revisiting* the same solution. 00:01:36.519 --> 00:01:41.770 So, if your organization produces a lot of e-commerce sites and you've done 00:01:41.770 --> 00:01:47.748 this particular kind of solution 10 times before, then obviously no need to paper-prototype. 00:01:47.748 --> 00:01:52.497 But if you're looking at novel solutions, if you're the next big startup 00:01:52.497 --> 00:01:58.380 and you want to make sure that people understand your proposition and they know how to work with it, 00:01:58.380 --> 00:02:02.360 then paper prototyping is a great way of starting. 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:12.520 So, here's Carolyn Snyder, a friend of mine, who  has written a book called *Paper Prototyping*. 00:02:12.640 --> 00:02:16.332 It's not a fantastically long or detailed book, 00:02:16.332 --> 00:02:21.900 but it does go through all the basics, and you can see just looking at this particular screenshot, 00:02:21.900 --> 00:02:26.143 or paper-shot even – it's not of a screen of course – it's showing 00:02:26.143 --> 00:02:31.150 little strips of paper that have been tacked on, and you can see that the cross on the 00:02:31.150 --> 00:02:35.617 – with color has just been applied with some sticky tape, literally, 00:02:35.617 --> 00:02:39.724 and the text in the box underneath has been done the same way. 00:02:39.724 --> 00:02:44.496 And it's just all done with users, with *a user*, typically, 00:02:44.496 --> 00:02:48.123 and an agreed script, an agreed set of pages. 00:02:48.123 --> 00:02:52.116 And you ask users to interact as if this was for real. 00:02:52.116 --> 00:02:57.079 And they tell you what they would do, and you play-act it. 00:02:57.079 --> 00:03:01.534 So, it's fairly standard office supplies. You can do most paper prototyping with about 00:03:01.534 --> 00:03:06.381 10 pounds', dollars' or euros' worth of office stationery. 00:03:06.381 --> 00:03:12.186 You need to, as I mention here, make sure that you've *tested* your process 00:03:12.186 --> 00:03:16.729 before the user arrives, that you know what you're going to do *if* certain things happen, 00:03:16.729 --> 00:03:21.222 and you need to *agree with the team* what this process is meant to look like 00:03:21.222 --> 00:03:25.283 so that you're not basically testing something different 00:03:25.283 --> 00:03:28.840 from what the design team is proposing to do.