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Software Development
SD Best Practices 2004 / Show Daily /

Abstract Prototyping

Sticky notes and canonical tools bridge the gap.

"Somewhere between understanding the task and the realization of design, magic happens—if you have a third-degree wizard—but if you have an apprentice, results may vary, and almost no one can describe what they do, said Larry Constantine in his Sept. 21, 2004, class. "Abstract modeling takes the magic out of the process.

Interface designers have basically two prototype choices: figurative (conventional pictorial representations that reflect what the user actually sees) and abstract (conceptual diagrams, notations and descriptions). And since abstract prototypes isolate and simplify design decisions, Constantine, a self-professed third-degree wizard, likes starting from the abstract before developing the figurative.

But how do you bridge the gap from abstract to figurative? Constantine champions Canonical Abstract Prototypes. After a quick tutorial on these components—which allow you to model content, organization and function with a simple yet extensible set of symbolic representation composed of boxes and arrows, without specifying any content or behavior—the class separated into groups for a prototyping exercise.

The process of deriving the abstract prototype using canonical components from task case steps included:

• For each task case, identifying the contents without regard to the final layout on sticky notes.
• Repositioning components to explore layouts (sticky notes were useful for this).
• Sketching on paper or computer the size, shape, position and composition combinations.
• Refining and redrawing as needed.

Once you have the canonical drawing, you're free to realize each abstract component in any number of standard or custom implementations yielding your figurative prototype. However, you may wonder if a bit of wizardry is still needed. As the users finished off their problem, they realized that Constantine's drawings were far more sophisticated than their own, and that no one had picked up his canonical components. But, judging by these apprentices' positive reaction, this is one magic charm they'll keep.

—Rosalyn Lum

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