Comparing User Interaction with Low and High Fidelity Prototypes of Tabletop Surfaces

Derboven, Jan; De Roeck, Dries; Verstraete, Mathijs; Geerts, David; Schneider-Barnes, Jan; Luyten, Kris

doi:10.1145/1868914.1868935

Jan Derboven, Dries De Roeck, Mathijs Verstraete, David Geerts, Jan Schneider-Barnes, & Kris Luyten, Comparing User Interaction with Low and High Fidelity Prototypes of Tabletop Surfaces, in Proceedings of the 6th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Extending Boundaries,148-157 (Association for Computing Machinery 2010). DOI WWW PDF

Abstract:

This paper describes a comparative study between the usage of low-fidelity and a high-fidelity prototyping for the creation of multi-user multi-touch interfaces. The multi-touch interface presented in this paper allows users to collaboratively search for existing multimedia content, create new compositions with this content, and finally integrate it in a layout for presenting it. The study we conducted consists of a series of parallel user tests using both low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes to inform the design of the multi-touch interface. Based on a comparison of the two test sessions, we found that one should be cautious in generalising high-level user interactions from a low towards a high-fidelity prototype. However, the low-fidelity prototype approach presented proved to be very valuable to generate design ideas concerning both high and low-level user interactions on a multi-touch tabletop.