Slow and Principled Prototyping of Usage Surfaces: a Method For User Interface Engineering
Peter Gorny, Axel Viereck, Ling Qin, Ulrike Daldrup · Berichte des German Chapter of the ACM · 1993
Rapid prototyping in usage surface design is a method which supports the early presentation of first results to the customer and the potential users of new software systems. It implies an intuitive design, based on the experience and imagination of the designers. This approach often blocks the consideration of alternatives for the usage surface in a very early stage — a disadvantage, which cannot be overcome by the users because of the lack of their knowledge of the other possibilities. With MUSE we present a m ethod for us er interface e ngineering which offers the possibility to reduce the complexity of design decisions by ordering them in phases, beginning with the analysis of all available information about user and task characteristics, deciding about dialogue types, selecting appropriate dialogue forms, their techniques, including their textual or graphical/iconic representation, and ending with the implementation of a user interface prototype (an interactive “mock-up”): a slow and principled prototyping approach.