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When we started paper prototyping, we realized that coming up with designs beforehand was particularly instrumental because when we selected one of the designs to work with, we realized that most of the improvements we thought of could be attained by incorporating various parts of the alternate designs that we had come up with.
Through the 3 phases of testing (paper prototype testing, heuristic evaluation and final user testing), we also learned that actual user reviews can expose completely unforeseen potential problems in mostly the layout of a user interface. We, as designers, at every stage would like to believe we have designed an interface, which is learnable, efficient, visible, error-preventive and yet simple, and that we have considered all alternative choices. However, the reviews we received from our evaluators helped us realize ways in which we could improve our interface. These reviews were broad but starkly incisive; ranging from layout issues , to such as buttons being too big and inter-tab consistency mishaps, to some suggestions of tasks they would like the interface to have. Refining our interface at every step thus helped us learn the user centered design process, and also develop a usable interface.
The process of building the feedback and the user interactions between in different parts of the website was the most difficult, and decisions about the interface during the paper prototyping phase influenced and changed a lot how the different parts of the website interacted with each other. Hence it is clear for us that the first stages of development of a product play a big role on what a product may become and, therefore, should be considered as a very important part of software development. We focused on consistency between tabs a great deal to ensure a smooth experience for users. We also tried to maintain the balance of visibility and simplicity as well as of error-prevention and user control.
Since both user reviews and paper prototyping are really important for software development, we also learned that the development of a software is not a single stage phase that has a determined time to start and to end. Software development is complex and requires to be constantly updated so it can satisfy the needs of the users. Had we followed the waterfall model in implementing this interface, it surely would not have turned out as well as it did with the user-centered design process.