What is user interface prototyping ?

A prototype is a semi-functional simulation of the product, and an inexpensive alternative to full technical implementation. Prototyping is an excellent means for generating ideas about how a user interface can be designed, and it helps to evaluate the quality of a solution at an early stage. Prototypes may be created using tools such as paper, white boards, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, HTML, Flash, Java or other technologies. The prototype is used to refine the user interface and user experience. Usability tests are often conducted using a User Interface Prototype.
User interface (UI) prototyping is an iterative analysis technique in which users are actively involved in the mocking-up of the UI for a system. UI prototypes have several purposes:
* As an analysis artifact that enables you to explore the problem space with your stakeholders.
* As a requirements artifact to initially envision the system.
* As a design artifact that enables you to explore the solution space of your system.
* A vehicle for you to communicate the possible UI design(s) of your system.
* A potential foundation from which to continue developing the system (if you intend to throw the prototype away and start over from scratch then you don’t need to invest the time writing quality code for your prototype).
In the past, it was very common for the consideration of the user interface to be one of the last steps performed in the System Development Life Cycle. Typically after everything about the system had been analyzed and designed, the user interface was developed. The driving factors behind the interface design tended to be what the programmer felt was a logical, intuitive depiction of the system’s capabilities and processes. When, or if, usability testing was done, it generally occurred after barriers such as coding time and expense were in place that prohibited major revisions.
What users want is for developers to build applications that meet their needs and that are easy to use. Too many developers think that they are artistic geniuses – they do not bother to follow user interface design standards or invest the effort to make their applications usable, instead they mistakenly believe that the important thing is to make the code clever or to use a really interesting color scheme.
A well-designed graphical user interface decreases the user’s learning curve and is able to lessen the user’s mental load when using the application. User interfaces have been shown to impact usability when measured by such criteria as speed, accuracy, number of tasks completed, time to learn how to use the system, frequent of reference to documentation, and subjective measures regarding satisfaction with system and satisfaction with performance.