Does the Fidelity of Software Prototypes Affect the Perception of Usability?

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Abstract
The objective of this study was to investigate whether the aesthetic refinement of a software prototype is related to subjects' ratings of the usability of the prototype. We purchased a commercially available electronic device offering the functions of dictionary, calculator, and thesaurus (hereafter referred to as the Dictionary). We created four user interface prototypes of the Dictionary using line art, half-tone, gray scale, and color images of the product. The prototypes varied in the degree to which the displayed image resembled the physical look of the real product in terms of depth, tone, color, etc. All of the prototypes were interactive in that subjects could, with a mouse, make the prototypes operate like the Dictionary. Five groups of ten subjects each then made their ratings and performed tasks using either one of the prototypes or the Dictionary. The subjects rated ease of learning and use, forgiveness of mistakes, and aesthetics for the version they used, before and after performing tasks. Subjects who used a prototype also repeated a task using the real product and compared the two in terms of similarity of interaction and aesthetics. The results indicated that the aesthetic quality of prototypes within the range we varied did not bias users for or against the prototype's perceived usability. However, we learned that half-tone prototypes should be avoided when their coarse shadings decrease legibility. In addition, we found that making prototypes mimic the response time of a product or a design concept is important. When the real product produces slower response times, prototype performance may give an overly optimistic picture of the product's usability.

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