[IxDA Discuss] What tools do you use for prototyping?

[Eric Scheid]

On 7/11/07 3:47 AM, "Andrei Herasimchuk" <andrei at involutionstudios.com>
wrote:

> Think of it this way: If you saw a drawing of the
> Volkswagen Beetle back in 1995 you'd think it was pretty cool and
> some opinions. 

uh .. waitaminit .. since when would a *drawing* of a Volkswagen Beetle be
thought of as representative of the category of things we call "paper
prototypes"?

> But when you went to the car show and saw a real live
> concept car fully built and can even sit inside it, you can provide
> all sorts of feedback never possible from seeing a simple drawing.

If that "real live concept car fully built" was built out of modelers foam,
wood, and other not-real-car materials, could you not still sit inside it
and provide all sorts of feedback (sans actually driving across europe, that
is)? It would even be sufficient to present the instrument panel in the form
of a colour printout instead of real live electronics - sightlines could be
tested, comprehension could be tested etc.

The medium of paper is great for prototyping things which appear on a flat
surface (eg. websites), just as foam core and wood and such do a pretty good
job of prototyping human-interface interaction possibilities of 3D objects.

e.