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203. Type of design prototypes

In interactive systems design prototypes are critical in the early stages of design unlike other fields of engineering design where design decisions can initially be carried out analytically without relying on a prototype. In systems design, prototyping is used to create interactive systems design where the completeness and success of the user interface can utterly depend on the testing of a working model. The prototype gives the designer a functional working model of their design so they can work with the design and identify some of its possible pros and cons before it is actually produced. The prototype also allows the user to be involved in testing design ideas. User involvement can however, have some drawbacks such as: users may lack the ability to imagine the implications of decisions made by the design team and/or users may be unable to comment on the technical content of the design.

Speaking expansively, there are two kinds of prototyping: paper-based and computer based. Examples of paper-based prototyping are sketches, story boards and scripts. Paper based methods are inexpensive, and they can provide very valuable insights, but they lack the capability of demonstrating functionality. Computer-based prototyping actually provides a system with limited functionality so that users can interact with it. In the engineering arena, prototypes are expected to be quick and inexpensive to produce as well as thrown way after they have served their purpose. Here the prototype is used to concentrate on a specific area of an interactive system and ignore others. These prototypes are made to duplicate a final part in size, reliability, and robustness. Hopefully the design team will find faults in the product before production takes place. An example of an area that prototyping has proved critical in the recent past is process control fault diagnosis. At the task level, prototyping the steps needed to identify and correct an error is crucial. Waiting until the system is in place before performing such testing could be fatal so good prototyping is essential.

In software prototyping however, it is a dynamic simulation where users can try out functions of the system by interacting with the it in 'real time' where functionality is usually the only attribute simulated. A software prototype is a system that actually works, can serve many different purposes, is built rapid prototyping and cheaply, and it allows for iterative designs.