Paper Prototyping

In this technique users are shown an aspect of a product on paper and asked questions about it, or asked to respond in other ways. To learn whether the flow of screens or pages that you have planned supports users' expectations, you may mock up pages with paper and pencil on graph paper, or create line drawings or wireframe drawings of screens, pages, or panels, with a version of the page for each state. For example, if the prototype is for a shopping cart for an e-commerce web site, you can show the cart with items, as items are being changed, and then with shipping and taxes added. (Or, you may simply dec.de to have the participant or the "computer" fill these items in as the session progresses.)

To learn whether the labels help users know what to expect next, and if the categories you have planned reflect how users think and talk about tasks you can show the top-level navigation. As the participant indicates the top-level choice, you then show the next level of navigation for that choice. The process

continues until the user has gone as deeply into the navigation as you have designed and prepared for the sessions.

Or, you may simply ask participants about the prototype you have created. The questions can range from particular attributes, such as organization and layout, to where one might find certain options or types of information. 

The value of the paper prototype or paper-and-pencil evaluation is that critical information can be collected quickly and inexpensively. One can ascertain those functions and features that are intuitive and those that are not, before one line of code lins been written. In addition, technical writers might use the technique to evaluate the intuitiveness of their table of contents before writing one word of text. The technique can be employed again and again with minimal drain on resources.