WEBVTT 00:00:02.760 --> 00:00:05.180 So, why do you need prototyping? 00:00:05.180 --> 00:00:08.520 Well, we never get things right first time. 00:00:08.520 --> 00:00:11.360 It's about getting things *better* when they're not perfect 00:00:11.360 --> 00:00:14.520 and also *starting in a good place*. 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:23.570 Maybe if I'm going to make a wall for a house, 00:00:23.570 --> 00:00:26.860 I know exactly how big the wall should be. 00:00:26.860 --> 00:00:29.520 I can work out how many bricks I need. 00:00:29.520 --> 00:00:31.880 I can make it exactly the right size. 00:00:31.880 --> 00:00:34.118 So, I can get it right first time. It's important to. 00:00:34.120 --> 00:00:37.040 I don't want to knock the wall down and retry it several times. 00:00:37.620 --> 00:00:42.760 However, there I have a very clear idea of what I'm actually creating. 00:00:43.300 --> 00:00:47.060 With people involved, when you're designing something for people, 00:00:47.060 --> 00:00:50.360 people are not quite as predictable as brick walls. 00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:53.800 So, we *don't* get things right first time. 00:00:56.300 --> 00:01:00.660 So, there's a sort of classic cycle – you design something, you prototype it, 00:01:01.100 --> 00:01:03.714 and that prototyping might be, 00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:09.240 you might sort of get a pad of paper out and start to sketch your design 00:01:09.240 --> 00:01:12.780 of what your interface is going to be like and talk through it with somebody. 00:01:12.780 --> 00:01:14.896 That might be your prototype. 00:01:14.896 --> 00:01:20.280 It might be making something out of blue foam or out of cardboard. 00:01:21.340 --> 00:01:25.880 Or it might be actually creating something on a device 00:01:25.880 --> 00:01:31.540 that isn't the final system but is a "make-do" version, something that will help people understand. 00:01:31.540 --> 00:01:34.680 But, anyway, you make some sort of prototype. You give it to real users. 00:01:34.680 --> 00:01:38.320 You talk to the real users who are likely to be using that about it. 00:01:38.320 --> 00:01:41.680 You evaluate that prototype. You find out what's wrong. You redesign it. 00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:44.140 You fix the bugs. You fix the problems. 00:01:44.312 --> 00:01:47.060 You mend the prototype, or you make a different prototype. 00:01:47.060 --> 00:01:52.020 Perhaps you make a better prototype, a higher-fidelity prototype – one that's closer to the real thing. 00:01:52.020 --> 00:01:55.760 You test it again, evaluate it with people, round and round and round. 00:01:55.760 --> 00:01:58.700 Eventually, you decide it's good enough. 00:01:58.700 --> 00:02:03.340 "Good enough" probably doesn't mean "perfect", because we're not going to get things perfect, ever. 00:02:03.340 --> 00:02:06.140 But "good enough" – and then you decide you're going to ship it. 00:02:06.520 --> 00:02:08.528 That's the story. 00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:14.700 In certain cases in web interfaces, you might actually release 00:02:14.700 --> 00:02:17.920 what in the past might have been thought of as "a prototype" 00:02:18.460 --> 00:02:22.840 because you know you can fix it, and there might not be an end point to this. 00:02:22.840 --> 00:02:26.820 So, you might in delivering something – and this is true of any product, actually – 00:02:26.820 --> 00:02:29.920 when you've "finished" it, you haven't really finished, 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:33.180 because you'll see other problems with it, and you might update it 00:02:33.180 --> 00:02:35.240 and create new versions and create updates. 00:02:35.240 --> 00:02:38.120 So, in some sense, this process never stops. 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:45.500 In one way, it's easy to get so caught up with this *iteration* 00:02:45.500 --> 00:02:47.360 – that is an essential thing – 00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:51.180 that you can forget about actually designing it well in the first place. 00:02:51.180 --> 00:02:56.080 Now, that seems like a silly thing to say, but it is easy to do that. 00:02:56.080 --> 00:02:58.687 You know you're going to iterate anyhow. 00:02:58.687 --> 00:03:02.480 So, you try something – and there are sometimes good reasons for doing this – 00:03:02.480 --> 00:03:05.300 you might have *so little* understanding of a domain 00:03:05.300 --> 00:03:07.960 that you try something out to start with. 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:12.220 However, then what you're doing is creating a *technology probe*. 00:03:12.220 --> 00:03:14.540 You're doing something in order to find out. 00:03:15.200 --> 00:03:19.900 Of course, what's easy then to think about is to treat that as if it was your first prototype – 00:03:19.900 --> 00:03:22.380 to try and make it better and better and better. 00:03:23.200 --> 00:03:29.100 The trouble is – if it didn't start good, it might not end up very good at the end, despite iteration. 00:03:29.100 --> 00:03:32.800 And the reason for that is a phenomenon that's called *local maxima*. 00:03:33.200 --> 00:03:38.180 So, what I've got here is a picture. You can imagine this is a sort of terrain somewhere. 00:03:38.180 --> 00:03:42.700 And one way to get to somewhere high if you're dumped in the middle of a mountainous place – 00:03:42.700 --> 00:03:45.940 if you just keep walking uphill, you'll end up somewhere high. 00:03:45.940 --> 00:03:49.760 And, actually, you can do the opposite as well. If you're stuck in the mountains and you want to get down, 00:03:49.760 --> 00:03:52.452 the obvious thing is to walk downhill. 00:03:52.540 --> 00:03:56.480 And sometimes that works, and sometimes you get stuck in a gully somewhere. 00:03:56.480 --> 00:03:59.320 So, imagine we're starting at this position over on the left. 00:03:59.320 --> 00:04:02.680 You start to walk uphill and you walk uphill and you walk uphill. 00:04:02.920 --> 00:04:08.380 And, eventually, you get onto the top of that little knoll there. It wasn't very high. 00:04:08.380 --> 00:04:12.840 Now, of course, if you'd started on the right of this picture, near the *big* mountain, 00:04:12.840 --> 00:04:16.927 and you go uphill and you go uphill and you go uphill and you get uphill, 00:04:16.927 --> 00:04:19.440 you eventually end up at the top of the big mountain. 00:04:19.440 --> 00:04:22.100 Now, that's true of mountains – that's fairly obvious. 00:04:22.100 --> 00:04:25.280 It's also true of user interfaces. 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:29.080 *If you start off* with a really dreadful design 00:04:29.080 --> 00:04:31.887 and you fix the obvious errors, 00:04:31.887 --> 00:04:35.680 *then you end up* with something that's probably still pretty dreadful. 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:40.740 If you start off with something that's in the right area to start with, you do better. 00:04:40.740 --> 00:04:44.840 So, the example I've put on the slide is the Malverns. 00:04:44.840 --> 00:04:47.560 The Malverns are a set of hills in the middle of the UK 00:04:47.560 --> 00:04:50.935 – somewhere to the southwest of Birmingham. 00:04:50.940 --> 00:04:55.080 And the highest point in these hills is about 900 feet. 00:04:55.751 --> 00:05:00.100 But there's nothing higher than that for miles and miles and miles and miles. 00:05:00.100 --> 00:05:03.260 So, it is the highest point, but it's not *the* highest point, 00:05:03.260 --> 00:05:05.580 certainly in Britain, let alone the world. 00:05:05.580 --> 00:05:10.320 If you want to go really high, you want to go to Switzerland and climb up the Matterhorn 00:05:10.320 --> 00:05:12.940 or to Tibet 00:05:12.940 --> 00:05:17.680 and go up Mount Everest, up in the Himalayas, 00:05:17.680 --> 00:05:21.478 you'll start somewhere better, right? So, if you start 00:05:21.478 --> 00:05:26.031 – or on the island I live on, on Tiree, the highest point is 120 meters. 00:05:26.031 --> 00:05:30.228 So, if you start on Tiree and keep on walking upwards, you don't get very high. 00:05:30.228 --> 00:05:32.761 You need to start in the *right* sort of area, 00:05:32.761 --> 00:05:37.200 and similarly with a user interface, you need to start with the *right* kind of system. 00:05:37.200 --> 00:05:39.927 So, there are two things you need for an iterative process. 00:05:39.927 --> 00:05:42.440 You need a *very good starting point*. 00:05:42.440 --> 00:05:47.620 It doesn't have to be the best interface to start with, but it has to be in the right area. 00:05:47.620 --> 00:05:51.332 It has to be something that when you improve it, it will get really good. 00:05:51.737 --> 00:05:55.890 And also – and this is sort of obvious but actually is easy to get wrong – 00:05:55.890 --> 00:05:58.686 you need to understand *what's wrong*. 00:05:58.686 --> 00:06:04.620 So, when you evaluate something, you really need to understand the problem. 00:06:04.620 --> 00:06:09.200 Otherwise, what you do is you just try something to "fix the obvious problem" 00:06:09.200 --> 00:06:12.020 and end up maybe not even fixing the problem 00:06:12.020 --> 00:06:16.080 but certainly potentially breaking other things as well, making it worse. 00:06:16.080 --> 00:06:21.500 So, just like if you're trying to climb mountains, 00:06:21.500 --> 00:06:23.640 you need to start off in a good area. 00:06:23.640 --> 00:06:26.840 Start off in the Himalayas, not on Tiree. 00:06:27.667 --> 00:06:31.140 You also need to know which direction is up. 00:06:31.140 --> 00:06:34.900 If you just walk in random directions, you won't end up in a very high place. 00:06:34.900 --> 00:06:37.020 If you keep walking uphill, you will. 00:06:37.020 --> 00:06:41.520 So, you need to *understand where to start* 00:06:41.520 --> 00:06:44.424 and *understand which way is up*. 00:06:44.660 --> 00:06:50.120 For prototyping your user interface, you need a *really rich understanding* of *your users*, 00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:54.660 of the nature of *design*, of the nature of the *technology* you're using, 00:06:54.660 --> 00:06:57.800 in order to start in a good place. 00:06:59.060 --> 00:07:03.660 Then, when you evaluate things with people, 00:07:03.660 --> 00:07:08.612 you need to try and *really deeply* understand what's going on with them 00:07:08.612 --> 00:07:11.080 in order to actually *make things better* 00:07:11.080 --> 00:07:14.528 and possibly even to get to a point where you stand back and think: 00:07:14.528 --> 00:07:19.391 "Actually, all these little changes I'm making are not making 00:07:19.391 --> 00:07:22.728 really a sufficient difference at all. I'm going around in circles." 00:07:22.728 --> 00:07:27.000 Sometimes, you have to stand right back and make a *radical change* to your design. 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:30.220 That's a bit like I'm climbing up a mountain 00:07:30.220 --> 00:07:33.080 and I've suddenly realized that I've got stuck up a little peak. 00:07:33.080 --> 00:07:35.880 And I look out over there, and there's a bigger place. 00:07:35.880 --> 00:07:39.545 And I might have to go downhill and start again somewhere else. 00:07:39.545 --> 00:07:44.564 So, iteration is absolutely crucial. You won't get things right first time. 00:07:44.564 --> 00:07:47.170 You *alway*s need to iterate. 00:07:47.170 --> 00:07:50.910 So, prototyping – all sorts of prototypes, from paper prototypes 00:07:50.910 --> 00:07:54.715 to really running code – is very, very important. 00:07:54.715 --> 00:08:00.302 However, *crucial to design is having a deep and thorough understanding of your users*, 00:08:00.302 --> 00:08:05.400 *a deep and thorough understanding of your technology and how you put them together*.