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I definitely would have presented more fundamentally different designs, rather than modifications on a single theme. By the end of the iterative process, the end product was quite different(probably a good thing), but many of the changes occurred very late in the process. Also, in an attempt to save work, prototypes were done in swing, as to use them in the final design. It might have been more effective to do the products in an easier prototyping tool such as Flex in order to test more prototypes. In addition, we learned the value of testing and prototyping. Many issues that we hadn't thought of were brought out by these processes and led to a much better design in the end. Testing and prototyping really showcased the benefits of iterative design, especially with regards to user interfaces. By taking an iterative approach, we could take some risks such as having a sliding interface for voting. Then if it didn't work out, as in our case, we were able to easily change it to a better interface without suffering very much.
With regards to evaluating the results of testing and prototyping, it was very useful to aggregate all the comments. This made it easier to determine the importance of various comments since recurring problems indicated that the issue was a valid complaint.