CMPS115, Milestone 1 (continued)

Paper Prototype

Develop a paper prototype for your game.

• Include a story board representation of the paper prototype here. You will be graded on the completeness of the story board representation of the paper prototype for the user interface, in addition to the user interface. You should follow the guidelines given in class for user interface design, however, your grade will reflect whether or not you have included a story board sheet for EACH different screen of your UI as well as the completeness of the narrative text that describes ALL possible input to that screen. Include in the narrative text the NEXT screen that results from EACH of the different inputs and the side effects that occur. All help text and error message text that will be provided to the user needs to be detailed. You need to indicate how this help text is accessed and the exact text that will be used. See below for more instructions.
• Group time recording log.
• Group meeting notes.

Instructions for a prototype:

A prototype should serve as a mechanism for helping you to understand the software requirements prior to design and coding. Activities are to define overall objectives for the software, identity whatever requirements are known, and outline areas where further definition is mandatory. A "quick design" then occurs. The quick design focuses on a representation of those aspects of the software visible to the user. The prototype allows the user to refine requirements and for the developer to better understand what needs to be done. If dealing with a paper prototype, the formalization requires that you create a series of story board sheets. Each story board sheet contains a representation of a screen image with a narrative text that describes the interaction between the machine and the user.

You will be graded on the completeness of the story board representation of the paper prototype for the user interface, in addition to the user interface. Your grade will reflect whether or not you have included a story board sheet for EACH different screen of your user interface (UI) as well as the completeness of the narrative text that describes ALL possible input to that screen. Include in the narrative text the NEXT screen that results from EACH of the different inputs. All help text that will be provided to the user needs to be detailed. You need to indicate how this help text is accessed and the exact text that will be used. Please see the examples

The steps to be followed in producing a prototype are:

step 1:

Evaluate request for software. This request can be in the form of a memo describing the problem, a report defining a set of business or product goals, a formal request for a proposal, or a system specification that has allocated function and performance requirements as one element of a larger computer-based system. Determine if prototype is an appropriate form for the job. Factors to use in determining this are application area, application complexity, customer characteristics, and project characteristics.

step 2:

An abbreviated representation of the requirements is developed. This is to include both informational and functional characteristics.

step 3:

A set of abbreviated design specifications are created for prototype. The design typically focuses on top level architectural and data design issues, not detailed design issues.

step 4:

the software prototype is created, tested, refined. If possible, pre-existing software building blocks are used. For human-machine applications, a paper prototype that depicts human-machine interaction (queries, displays, decisions) is created.

step 5:

Once tested, the prototype is presented to the customer who test drives the application and suggests modifications.

step 6:

Steps 4 and 5 are iteratively repeated until all requirements are formalized or until the prototype has evolved into a production system. If dealing with a paper prototype, the formalization requires that a series of story board sheets is created. Each story board sheet contains a representation of a screen image with a narrative text that describes the interaction between the machine and the user.

Acknowledgemens: I would like to gratefully acknowledge Linda Werner, the author of this assignment.