Lost in low fidelity? — Nr. 119
Low fidelity is awesome, but it can be overwhelming.
Low fidelity is an exciting method. You can quickly visualize what’s in your head. The fuzzy idea becomes more concrete.
It’s handy when I’m designing a complex interaction. Let’s use Google Maps as an example. What happens when the user clicks the search bar? What information should we show here?
Low fidelity is decisive in this scenario because we can explore alternatives, assess them, and decide.
Lately, I have become more effective in using low fidelity.
In the past, I usually think, “OK, let me sketch and figure it out from there.” The problem? I ended up exploring or thinking about irrelevant things.
Now? I create the interaction scope first. Let me explain.
Let’s say we’re designing a label feature in Gmail. This feature is intended to help people group similar emails together. Maybe you want to group emails related to “finance” or “traveling”.
Then, I will start with the interaction scope. In practice, I list things like this:
Create a label
Assign a label to an email
Remove a label from an email
Delete the label
It’s straightforward. You have a different list of “things” users can do. This is a better starting point because now I can spend 30 minutes sketching low fidelity to solve: What does the interaction look like when users want to create a label? You can use the given-when-then framework to help you think.