- Paper prototypes are great for getting feedback.
You might be worried about showing
your weird sticky note screens to people,
but I can assure you, they love it.
In fact, I find you get better feedback
when people don't think the screens are finished,
than you do from actual code or from realistic screen comps.
Run a usability test
with around five different participants,
one after another, to make sure they understand
your main concepts and that the screens flow logically.
Find people to be your participants
based on your persona descriptions.
A usability test is not a demo.
You give each participant a task
and then let them run with it.
I'd suggest using your storyboards
as the basis for the tasks.
Pull out the core task,
describe it to the participant,
then see what they do next.
As they work through the screens,
you'll have to play the role of computer.
That means changing the state of interface elements,
showing the next screen at the right time,
and doing everything that the program would normally do.
But you can't give hints
or show bits of the interface out of order.
That's cheating.
It's not how the product would behave in real life,
so you can't do it now.
Don't be upset if the usability tests turn up issues,
that's the whole point.
It's funny how screen ideas
that seem completely logical to you,
make no sense at all to the people seeing them
for the first time.
It's much better to find out about these things now,
early in the process,
while it's still easy to make a change
than it is several months down the line,
when you've already invested a lot of time and effort
in coding the real interface.
Usability testing your paper prototype
is a fast and cheap way to make sure you're on track
to deliver a great product and to catch issues early.