I had a productive day at work today. Professor John Maeda of the MIT Media Lab signed my copy of his book Maeda@Media this morning after our meeting (first pic). Looks like we'll be working on a project together.

Then I watched two of my designers conduct a paper prototype testing session. Paper prototypes (or "wireframes") are black and white line art mock-ups of user interfaces--in this case, some web forms--that are presented to a carefully recruited test participant to gather feedback. One person leads the discussion from a pre-determined speaking script asking the participant to "think aloud" and describe their impressions of a series of wireframes related to completing a task on the web site. A second person takes notes, and other people sometimes observe from another room. Scheduling these cost-effective internal user testing sessions early in the design process can go a long way towards meeting user expectations and enhancing usability.

I got a bunch of writing done and a budget meeting out of the way in the afternoon. Now that I'm on the train, I *really* wish I had grabbed a beer!

- mike lee -