Re: [Usability] Prototyping the next generation panel

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Been thinking about this some more...

> I'd certainly support prototyping this stuff sooner rather than later  
> as well-- 

One problem with these designs is their scope. We're not talking about
individual apps, here. We're talking about the whole desktop. How do you
prototype that?!

> but to be honest, that's the easy part, the hard part is  
> doing the right things with those prototypes to get the feedback we  
> need.

'the feedback we need'. At this early stage in the design process, I
feel that a small set of rich, qualitative studies would be an
appropriate starting point.

(On this subject - concentrating on in-depth, qualitative studies would,
IMO, play to our strengths, obviate the need for extensive research
resources, and would nicely tie into the user experience agenda. I for
one would be really interested in developing research strategies which
worked along these lines.)

We should also be in discussion with the developers who are working on
these designs to figure out what the research priorities should be.

Allan