UX Camp Spring/Summer 2023
To Be Rather Than to Seem: The Case for High-fidelity Prototypes in Experience Design
A great interactive experience should involve a lot more showing than telling. The end actor will need to know exactly how the product works with minimal explanation. Your demo should also require as little explanation as possible.
Static design tools (Photoshop, Sketch, Figma, etc…) do not present the reality of creating a digital product. They are also far less useful for creating interactions—macro or micro—and are especially cumbersome if you are designing for a variety of screen sizes.
To that end, I’ve started producing all client facing demos (prototypes) using core Web technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) to create interfaces that closely match the interactivity of final product. In this session, I will be explain the pros (and cons) of high fidelity prototypes, how to avoid the “prototype fidelity cliff”, how to make the transition, and what to expect from clients and team members who may be used to a completely different process. To clearly illustrate my points, I will be using case studies from projects I have been working on for the last decade.
