User Interface Design 2505ICT

Workshop Five Prototyping

1 Activity design scenario
You are tasked with developing a paper prototype for the interface for the game
scenario for Valet Wars.
Players are rival valet services in the same carpark. Their pick up and drop off
locations are in the centre of the car park, right across from each other.
Cars come in 1 of 4 colours and can only be parked in a parking spot of the
corresponding colour. Cars are owned by each player and identified by a player
marking.
Roads in the carpark are either 2 lanes (one in each direction), where cars must
obey road rules, or Single lane where cars can go either direction. The road is
marked to represent a number of squares, or moves.
The game starts with a mostly filled carpark, with equal number of cars belonging to
each player in each colour. There are additional cars for each player, representing
new cars arriving to be parked.
Each turn players will be tasked with returning cars back to customers leaving the
carpark, and parking cars of newly arrived customers. Tasks the player must
complete are decided at the start of each turn by rolling 4 dice. Each dice has a side
with the 4 car colours on it, and 2 blank sides.
Two dice tell the player which colour cars need to be parked, and two dice tell the
player which cars need to be returned to the pick up area (aka customers arriving or
leaving). Players receive new car tokens based on the colours rolled on the to-park
dice, and must return cars from the carpark according to the colours on the toreturn dice. A blank side means that no car needs to leave/park.
Tasks not completed in a turn persist for the player to complete in a future turn.
During their turn, players can move a maximum of 3 cars, and each car may move a
maximum of 3 Spaces. Cars in transit can be left on the roads after each turn.
A point is awarded when the player parks a car or returns it. The first player to get to
20 wins the game. Players can either focus on getting points or be dastardly and
leave cars on the road in evil positions so the other player has to take a longer
route.

Things to think about

These rules may seem complex, but this is an accurate reflection of the messy
problem situations that you might encounter. The key is in the UI and UX
implementation. Think about:

How will you keep track of the score?

How will you keep track of which cars are parking and which cars are
leaving?
How will you track how many cars each player has on the board?
How will you identify each player?

Activity Paper prototype

Your task is to develop paper based prototypes for the game scenario. You can
choose the specific tools that best suit your design plan.

2 Homework

Look at the different prototyping options. Which options would work best for
your design scenario for the Brief?
Plan your prototyping approach.
Commence development for your Design Brief.
Find an example of design tools in action.