User Testing - II

Cheap and Easy again! This time: Paper Prototyping. Again it is most useful when done in the early stages of development. It may be used for the whole design or just for parts of it, or both.
The most important rule: Don't make it look nice!
Usually this is very difficult when you are a graphic designer by heart, but it is so important to get results that make sense. When you just sketch with a felt-tip then you make it your speaking partner (one of the real end-users) much easier to help, suggest, or sketch with you. When you cook up a shiny design-proposition, it will look much more ready for an end-user, and you will only get feedback on details. The distance between buttons, the amount of shine on a bevel, and so on:
You always get feedback on the level of detail you provide a user with.

I used to make sketches in Flash (and yes, they were just sketches), but I learned that I got so much more basic information when I took just some paper, some felt-tips, a pair of scissors and some stickies (yes I am Dutch but I do mean those yellow attachable papers). When you make a rough sketch you get basic information, when you make a detailed sketch you get detailed information (but not the basix!), when you make a glossy sketch you just get glossy information.

More information:
Usability net about Prototyping
Shawn Medero's article on paper prototyping, very useful!
Dutch movie on how to use paper prototyping. Thank you, Ruben!
5 tips, including the "incredibly intelligent mouse"

Remark: I just found out, although I call those yellow attachable papers stickies, they're actually called Post-it. thank you Alda.

Read Kathy Sierra's article "Don't make the Demo look Done", where this picture is from.