„There should be a comma“ – or: pros and cons of detailed prototypes
This post on “Signal vs. Noise†comments on the use of the infamous “lorem ipsum†dummy text for prototyping interfaces. Jason argues that using dummy text abstracts from the real user experience more than necessary. He states that by using real text (i.e. text, which really could appear on the interface in its use context) you get closer to understanding your users and get more of a “feel†for their experience with the interface (e.g. when filling in forms), even while building prototypes.
In a reader comment on the same page, Giovanni states that the risk of using “real†text is that “the client could (and will) fixate on the content and not on design or structure. This is the source of many designer ‘horror stories’“. I think that this is a good point. It’s true that detailing out prototypes bears the risk of putting a client (or whoever is supposed to give feedback on the interface) on the wrong track. And it can be quite hard getting someone off that track once they focused on texts or colours… This is in part due to the fact that a client also is a domain expert in most of the cases so it’s very easy to comment on texts and find errors there. And with colour, well, everyone has their favourite colour… So those comments can be made with much less effort than is required for commenting profoundly on layout or interaction design… Of course this is not always helpful.
I think there’s no golden rule for the exact time when you should detail out texts on your interfaces prototypes. Of course, prototypes should become more detailed as a project progresses and Jason is right that on screen texts are often not part of this detailing-out process, but should be. It’s part of the usability engineer’s / interface designer’s job to set the right focus when discussing interface proposals and to make sure everyone stays on track and discussion not centres on different shades of blue for a button all of a sudden.
Regardless of this issue, Jason is right in saying that using real texts is a good exercise for designers themselves to get a “feel†for the interface. When using real texts one gets an impression of the amount users have to read or enter on an interface, e.g. And you can always take the texts out later and replace them by “lorem ipsum†before discussing the interface with a client who tends to focus on spelling issues instead of fundamental site architecture…
