In the last two weeks, from both the lessons of “Web usability design and engineering” and “Multimodel interface design”, I learnt about paper prototyping. It is a technique that used to test a interface design before building the interface out. It is widely used in the industry because it do not cause much and easy to do. If you have no idea what paper prototype is, here is a video demonstrating it:
I was surprised when I first know what they are… Testing cyber things in such a old-school way (and still be widely used) is just unbelievable… It make me think of why there do not exist a better, more “cyber” way to do this.
We do not directly use computer software to make prototypes just because the interface of computer has its limitations. With mouse cursor we can only interact directly with one object in a time while we have two hands,ten fingers and use to interact with multiple objects simultaneously.
Maybe the rise of multitouch will solve this problem. Just like we move the paper in paper prototypes, we can move the virtual papers with our fingers when multi-touch is used. This is also the point why multitouch is so welcomed by end-users.
Furthermore, if you are still not satisfied, a 3D presentation of the virtual paper may help. I am not talking about those HMD things, but something like windows flip. We can get a specific paper easily without accidentally selecting other paper on top.
To conclude, it seems it is a fundamental interface problem of computers. Maybe we should redesign the interface of computer before we redesign the interface of websites…