![The Product Design Guide 248
Summary 249
References 249
CHAPTER 14 CARD SORTING PROTOTYPING 251
Description 251
Characteristics 252
An Overview of What a Card Sorting Prototype Looks Like 253
Types of Card Sorting 254
Information Architecture 254
Navigation Model for Website or Application 255
Menu Structure 255
Terminology Validation 255
Validation of Conceptual and Mental Models 256
Step-by-Step Guide to Card Sorting Prototypes 256
Step 1: Setting the Starting Point 257
Step 2: Designing the Session 258
Step 3: Preparing the Session 259
Step 4: Conducting the Session 261
Step 5: Synthesizing Results 262
Step 6: Preparing for Reuse 264
Example Spreadsheets 269
Next Iteration If You Would Leave This Prototype 270
References 270
Available Card Sorting Software [Courage and Baxter 2004] 271
CHAPTER 15 WIREFRAME PROTOTYPING 273
Description 273
Different Perspectives of a Wireframe 273
Characteristics 274
An Overview of What a Wireframe Prototype Looks Like 276
Different Goals of Wireframes 279
The Meaning of a Requirement 280
A Quick Visualization to Understand Scope, Structure,
and Layout 280
An Idea Sandbox to Play Around With Different Product
Ideas/Functions/Requirements 280
Contents | xvii](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-21-320.jpg)
![METHODS
The various methods are what can be used to create a prototype; for example,
storyboards, wireframes, paper prototypes, etc.
TOOLS
Prototyping tools are the software and/or physical tools used to create a prototype.
These tools include applications such as office productivity software, Visio, Acrobat,
Visual Basic, etc. But really, almost any software productivity application can be a
prototyping tool.
SOFTWARE IS NOT JUST DEVELOPED IT IS CREATED
The term, software development, stresses being driven by engineering rather than its
multidisciplinary collaborative nature. The activity, developing software, gives us the
impression that the software already exists in some ideal form to be realized by
engaging in a methodical scientific process inexorably resulting in the finished
software.
The prevailing practice we have observed in many companies suggest that, due
to its technical nature, software will have a predictable outcome as long as the right
engineering methods are followed. The reality is much different, with an overwhelm-
ing majority of written code (just like the majority of specified design) never seeing
the light of day. It is not necessarily bad development that leads to wasted code or
bad software, but rather poorly planned or ill-conceived development processes. Bill
Buxton (one of the pioneers in human-computer interaction) made the observation
that successful software making is a process more akin to filmmaking than pure
engineering. Films are made, not by a waterfall process but rather by doing most of
the work upfront and then iterating. A script and cast of characters are known
almost in its entirety before filming even begins. When filming begins, there is a
constant iteration centered on the core of the script and the cast of characters and
reviewing what had been shot each day [Buxton 2003]. It is our view that prototyp-
ing should play the same role that a script and cast of characters does in films: it
should be the overall plan the core is iterated on.
As a part of the software making process, we look more to prototyping as some-
thing to be done early and often. In the view of Michael Schrage, co director of
MIT’s media lab, prototypes are “shared spaces” that stimulate discussions,
debates and decisions that foster innovation and problem resolution. You appreci-
ate how they elicit indispensable feedback from customers and end users in usabil-
ity testing. [Schrage] Prototypes also elicit feedback from the myriad of key internal
stakeholders required to build software. Indeed just as Schrage envisions prototyp-
ing as a collaborative tool shared by clients and consultants, it is even more effec-
tive among the members of internal software creation teams. Regardless of who
you are, this book is dedicated to making you and your team into more effective
prototypers.
xxxii | Preface](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-36-320.jpg)
![Preface | xxxiii
Business
Requirements
Functional
Requirements
Design
Technical
Requirements
Quality
Assurance
Release
FIGURE 1 A waterfall in
action. Water falls
down to the bottom
never to be seen at the
top again.
THE GREAT WATERFALL METHOD
In software engineering, the waterfall method is one of the prevalent processes used to manage
software development projects. Waterfall, projects are broken into phases.
The waterfall diagram shown in Figure 2 shows that as the software is passed down from one phase
to the next. Each team involved with the previous stage hands over the software to the next team with
no additional input or responsibility required. This method is considered to be one of the easiest to man-
age due to the predictable and closed nature of the outcomes. The major fallacy with this process is the
assumption that when a phase is done, the work of that phase has been completed forever. However, in
reality, analysis rarely stops with design. Design almost never stops during the Build phase, and so on.
The result is an artificial separation and compartmentalization of people who need to work together in
collaboration. As shown by Ensor [Ensor 1997] in Figure 3, even attempts to bring iteration into the
waterfall process illustrates that this is doomed to failure as time cannot travel backwards. For example,
a new business requirement during the build phase, would have a ripple effect causing all previous steps
to be revisited: this is not efficient nor realistic. Moreover, we find informal processes, undercutting the
waterfall as teams need to work collaboratively to be efficient.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-37-320.jpg)
![SOFTWARE MAKING AND SOFTWARE MAKERS – A MODEL
FOR SOFTWARE CREATION
Too often, software creation is viewed in engineering terms rather than as the
cross-disciplinary process it should be perceived as. This claim should not be
xxxiv | Preface
FIGURE 2 The phases of
a waterfall method as
many software makers
have experienced it.
FIGURE 3 The Waterfall
method as portrayed in
[Ensor 1997]: an
attempt to make it
iterative (time does not
travel backwards
unfortunately).
Strategy
Analysis
Design
Test
Build
Transition
Production](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-38-320.jpg)
![WHY
PROTOTYPING?
1
For many of us, prototyping is essential to creating successful software and
successful user experiences. Prototyping ensures success because of its clear
depiction of software requirements: instead of describing requirements it
visualizes them. If done correctly, prototyping allows us to experiment in the
safety of a form which can be easily changed without much loss of time or
wasted effort when compared to re-programming software. Done effectively,
prototyping enables us to go beyond just meeting requirements, by enabling
experimentation and exploration for the optimal solutions. Done carelessly,
prototyping can just as easily create a murky stew of ideas lost in redundant
versions, unarticulated assumptions, and competing visions. This book aims
to explain what prototyping is, good reasons for prototyping, and how to
effectively prototype.
WHAT IS A PROTOTYPE?
prototype n. 1. An original or model after which anything is copied; the pattern of
anything to be engraved, or otherwise copied, cast, or the like; a primary form; exemplar;
archetype [Webster’s 1913 Dictionary].
prototype n. 1. An original type, form, or instance serving as a basis or standard for
later stages. 2. An original, full-scale, and usually working model of a new product or
new version of an existing product. 3. An early, typical example
[http://www.dictionary.com; accessed January 13, 2004].
The definition of prototype has changed little in more than 90 years. Webster’s
1913 Dictionary and today’s dictionary.com both classify a prototype in roughly the
same way: as a model of a final product. Yet the new definition does make a subtle
important difference. Unlike Webster’s, the definition from dictionary.com does
make a slight change using the word stages-plural-illustrating the iterative nature
of prototyping.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-45-320.jpg)
![This book specifically covers prototyping software as described by Bill
Verplank, who suggests that: “ ‘Prototyping’ is externalizing and making concrete
a design idea for the purpose of evaluation” [Munoz 1992]. We like Verplank’s
definition because prototypes are tangible software representations, which
permit the software team to experience a design without needing to program
the software.
A prototype is any attempt to realize any aspect of software content. For
example, the prototype can be a realization of interaction and navigation from
one point in a product to another. A prototype can also be a hierarchical schema
of an information design, divorced from both the look and feel of the final software.
Other aspects of a prototype include:
A Current state of the art
A Requirements
A Content
The current state of the art is a checkpoint of what the software would be
like if it was built with just the currently existing knowledge of the software-
making team.
Requirements can refer to business requirements, technical requirements,
functional requirements, end-user requirements, or any combination thereof.
Content can be any of the different content types that make the prototype:
information design, interaction design, visual design, editorial content, product
branding, and system performance.
For the sake of brevity we refer to any human-computer interaction as software
throughout this book, regardless of whether it is a product or service, whether
desktop software, mobile software, website, web application/service, or other
interactive digital product.
AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF PROTOTYPING
Software makers are not the first to wrestle with the challenges of inventing
and prototyping technology. Historical perspectives help us understand the
nature, challenges, and advantages of prototyping. Here we want to briefly
explore three prototypers from the past: Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison,
and Henry Dreyfuss. Each has made remarkable contributions to design and
the process of invention, and each has explored the possibilities of their
inventions with prototypes.
Da Vinci left behind prototypes of concepts and ideas (in the form of
drawings) that would take centuries to come to fruition. Thomas Edison used
exhaustive prototyping as the engine that drove his inventive ideas. And Henry
Dreyfuss used prototypes to make industrial products more user-centered and
ergonomically sound. These three people illustrate how a prototype serves one
primary purpose: the means of moving an idea from the human imagination to
a form that other humans can readily see, understand, evaluate, use, and
further develop.
4 | Chapter 1: Why Prototyping?](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-46-320.jpg)
![This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.
Title: Elizabethan Drama and Its Mad Folk
Author: E. Allison Peers
Release date: November 27, 2020 [eBook #63896]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Credits: E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Lisa Reigel, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(https://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously
made available by Internet Archive
(https://archive.org)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN
DRAMA AND ITS MAD FOLK ***](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-54-320.jpg)
![these finds only the scene-shifters and the green room, where his
nice offence will soon receive appropriate comments!
Our best plan, then, will be habitually to consider the plays from
the point of view which we take to be that of the author himself.
Prejudices will be put aside, and predispositions to premature
diagnoses resisted. Constance and Timon of Athens, with several
personages from Marlowe’s dramas, will be regarded (with some
effort) as sane, for the simple and quite adequate reason that they
were so regarded by their authors. The question whether or no
Hamlet was actually insane will, for the same reason, be dismissed
in a few words; while the many witches who haunt Elizabethan
drama, and whose prototypes afforded in nearly every case genuine
examples of dementia, will be heroically disregarded, as falling
without the bounds of our proposed theme.
From the number of occurrences in this body of drama of such
words as “mad,” “madness,” “Bedlam,” “frantic,” and the like, it might
be supposed that there are more genuine mad folk than actually
appear. A few words will suffice to clear up this difficulty.
The term “madness” is often used in a loose, unmeaning sense,—
in phrases such as “Mad wench!”, somewhat resembling the equally
unmeaning slang of to-day. To insist on this point would probably
provoke the charge of a lack of the sense of humour, and insistence
is indeed unnecessary. Most readers of Shakespeare will recall
Leontes’ transport before the supposed statue of his wife, a
transport which he characterises as “madness”; Portia’s description
of that “hare,” “madness the youth”; Biron’s apostrophe:
“Behaviour, what wert thou
Till this madman show’d thee?”[5:1]
and no less Shylock’s famous description of men that
“are mad if they behold a cat.”[5:2]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-67-320.jpg)
![Those who are acquainted with “Philaster” may remember Megra’s
description of
“A woman’s madness,
The glory of a fury,”[5:3]
and everyone has at some time or other lighted upon that kind of
“fine madness” which is the property of every true poet, and which
Drayton, attributing it to Marlowe, declares
“rightly should possess a poet’s brain.”[5:4]
Nowhere in these passages are we expected to see insanity, though
the last two are somewhat stronger than the others, and are typical
of many places where “madness” is used for simple passion and for
inspiration respectively.
In a very special sense, however, madness is used for the passion
of love, to such an extent that there is an actual gradation into
madness itself. Loosely, and often humorously, the lover is said to be
mad for the same reason as the lunatic. To quote Shakespeare once
more—as he is more familiar than many of his contemporaries—
“The lunatic, the lover and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact.”[6:1]
There is only a step between seeing “Helen’s beauty in a brow of
Egypt,”[6:2] and seeing “more devils than vast hell can hold.”[6:3]
Once cool reason has given way to “frenzy,” the Elizabethan is not
always too subtle in his distinctions within that convenient term. So
when Troilus informs us that he is “mad in Cressida’s love,”[6:4] when
Rosalind jestingly speaks of love as deserving “a dark house and a
whip,”[6:5] and when Mercutio declares that his Rosaline-tormented
Romeo will “sure run mad,”[6:6] we must not altogether discard such
references as idle or even conventional. For while there is a great
gulf fixed between such “frenzies” as these and the madness of the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-68-320.jpg)
![FOOTNOTES:
[5:1] “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” v., 2, 337.
[5:2] “Merchant of Venice,” iv., 1, 48.
[5:3] “Philaster,” ii., 4.
[5:4] Drayton, “The Battle of Agincourt.”
[6:1] “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” v., 1, 7.
[6:2] l. 11.
[6:3] l. 9.
[6:4] “Troilus and Cressida,” i., 1, 51.
[6:5] “As You Like It,” iii., 2, 420.
[6:6] “Romeo and Juliet,” ii., 4, 5.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-70-320.jpg)
![CHAPTER II.
The Presentation of Madness—from the Standpoint of History.
“A mad world, my masters!”
(Middleton.)
The earliest view of madness which finds its way into this drama
and persists throughout it, is based on the idea of possession by evil
spirits. This conception came down from remote ages; it accounts,
for example, for the madness of King Saul in the Old Testament,
when “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit
troubled him.”[8:1] In the Elizabethan Age, demoniacal possession
was still regarded as one of the most potent causes of insanity; it
was made to account not only for mental disease but for all kinds of
physical deformations and imperfections, whether occurring alone,
or, as is often the case, accompanying idiocy. An offshoot, as it were,
from this idea, is the ascription of mental disease to the influence of
witches, who were often themselves (ironically enough), persons
suffering from mental disorders. So enlightened a man as Sir
Thomas Browne declares more than once his belief in witches and
their influence; Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” asserts that
melancholy can be caused and cured by witches; the learned James,
King of England, and Edward Coke, who lived at the same time, both
take up the legal aspects, stating that the plea of insanity offered on
behalf of witches should not be recognised at the legal tribunal. In
Middleton’s “Witch” (i., 2), there is a mention of “solanum
somniferum” (otherwise known as Deadly Nightshade or Atropa
Belladonna) which was the chief ingredient in many witches’ recipes
and produced hallucinations and other abnormal states of mind.
Banquo, in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” probably refers to the witches’
influence when he enquires, directly after the first meeting with
them:](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-72-320.jpg)
![“Have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?”[9:1]
A counterpart to the idea of possession by demons is found in a
belief, common at this time and earlier, in the inspired utterances of
the frenzied prophetess. Neither here nor with the witches was any
curative treatment undertaken. For with the oracle no such
treatment was thought to be necessary or even advisable, and with
the witches none except death was supposed to avail. Occasionally a
“witch” might be subjected, like other mad folk, to “chains” and
“whips,” but the road more often taken was the short one. In simple
cases of demoniacal possession the means of cure was patent: the
demon must be cast out and the patient will return to his right mind.
The exorcisation of the “conjuror” was commonly accompanied by
pseudo-medical treatment, the nature of which will presently appear.
Now the influence of the demonological conception of insanity is
clearly seen in our dramas. Everyone is familiar, to go no farther
than Shakespeare, with the famous exorcisation scene in “Twelfth
Night,”[10:1] where the clown, disguised as “Sir Topas the curate,”
comes to visit “Malvolio the lunatic,” and drives out the “hyperbolical
fiend” which is supposed to vex him. Everything Malvolio does can
be expressed in terms of Satan. When the wretched man speaks, it
is the “fiend” speaking “hollow” within him. His disgusted
exclamation when Maria urges him to “say his prayers” is construed
into the fiend’s repugnance to things sacred. Fabian advises “no way
(of treatment) but gentleness . . . the fiend is rough and will not be
roughly used.” While Sir Toby protests that it is “not for gravity to
play at cherry-pit with Satan; hang him, foul collier.” A more
complete and far more famous illustration may be found in
“Lear,”[10:2] where Edgar attributes his assumed madness to
possession by the various spirits which he names. Almost his first
words in his disguise tell of the “foul fiend” leading him “through fire
and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and
quagmire.”[11:1] He names “the foul Flibbertigibbet,” the fiend of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-73-320.jpg)
![“mopping and mowing,”[11:2] who “gives the web and the pin,
squints the eye, and makes the harelip;”[11:3] of “the prince of
darkness . . . a gentleman; Modo he’s called and Mahu”;[11:4] of
“Hobbididence prince of dumbness;” of “Hoppedance” who “cries in
Tom’s belly for two white herring”[11:5] and many others—culled
from the flowery page of Harsnet’s “Popish Impostures.”
A more modern idea of insanity is that which attributes it to
natural physical causes, and this finds expression in our dramas—
often in the same play—side by side with the conception just
mentioned. The capriciousness of heredity, for instance, is
recognised by the author of “A Fair Quarrel”:
“Wise men beget fools and fools are the fathers
To many wise children . . .
A great scholar may beget an idiot,
And from the ploughtail may come a great scholar.”[11:6]
The supposed justice of the same law is illustrated by a passage
in Brome’s “English Moor,” where among punishments for sin is
included:
“That his base offspring proves a natural idiot.”
One of the most popular of the physical causes assigned by
seventeenth century dramatists to madness is the worm in the brain.
“Madam,” says Arcadius in Shirley’s “Coronation,” “my uncle is
something craz’d; there is a worm in’s brain.”[12:1] Shirley frequently
refers to this particular “cause,” and Winfield, one of the characters
in “The Ball,” adds to it another superstition when he says: “He has a
worm in’s brain, which some have suppos’d at some time o’ the
moon doth ravish him into perfect madness.”[12:2]
Superstition is responsible for many of the “causes” of madness in
our drama, and among these the most prominent is probably the
superstition responsible for the English word “lunatic.” The supposed](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-74-320.jpg)
![influence of the moon on insanity and of its deviations on the
recurrence of maniacal periods is clearly the source of those words
which Shakespeare gives to Othello after the murder of Desdemona:
“It is the very error of the moon;
She comes more nearer earth than she was wont
And makes men mad.”[12:3]
So Lollio, in “The Changeling,” tells Franciscus that “Luna” made him
mad.[12:4] The “parson” who figures, too, among the mad folk in
“The Pilgrim,” has to be “tied short” since “the moon’s i’ th’ full.”[12:5]
That the superstition connected with the moon, however, was
under high medical patronage is shewn by a reference to the
“Anatomie of the Bodie of Man” by one Vicary, chief surgeon at St.
Bartholomew’s Hospital (1548-1562). “Also the Brayne” (he writes)
“hath this propertie that it moveth and followeth the moving of the
moone; for in the waxing of the moone the brayne discendeth
downwarde and vanisheth in substance of vertue; for then the
Brayne shrinketh together in itselfe and is not so fully obedient to
the spirit of feeling, and this is proved in men that be lunaticke or
madde . . . that be moste greeved in the beginning of the newe
moone and in the latter quarter of the moone. Wherefore when it
happeneth that the Brayne is either too drye or too moyst, then can
it not werke his kinde; then are the spirits of life melted and resolved
away, and then foloweth feebleness of the wittes and of al other
members of the bodie, and at the laste death.”
The word “lunatic” itself, it may be noted, quickly passed into
common speech, and was used without reference to its original
significance. We shall find it constantly recurring throughout this
study, but as there is little variety in its use, no further examples
need be quoted.
An interesting superstition is connected with the mandrake plant,
round which, from the supposed resemblance of its strangely cleft
root to the human figure, many weird notions have gathered. One of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-75-320.jpg)
![these was that when torn from the ground, the plant would utter
groans of “sad horror,” which, if heard, caused instant madness, or
even death.[14:1] From the numerous references to this superstition
in Elizabethan drama may be extracted two,—the first from “Romeo
and Juliet” (iv., 3, 47-8), where Juliet speaks of
“shrieks of mandrakes, torn out of the earth
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad”;
the second from a speech of Suffolk’s in “2 Henry VI.” (iii., 2, 310),
where the Duke reminds the Queen that curses will not kill
“as doth the mandrake’s groan.”
Other causes to which, rightly or wrongly, insanity is attributed
may be grouped together for convenience. In the “Emperor of the
East” is an obvious reminiscence of Holy Writ where Flaccilla says of
Pulcheria:
“Grant heaven, your too much learning
Does not conclude in madness.”[14:2]
This devout wish, however, has only about as much claim to be
taken seriously as Leonato’s fear that Benedick and Beatrice, married
a week, would “talk themselves mad.”[15:1]
Such causes as irritation, worry, jealousy and persecution are
frequently mentioned as conducing to frenzy, if not actually causing
it. The Abbess of the “Comedy of Errors,” reproaching Adriana for
her treatment of Antipholus, sums the matter up thus:
“The venom clamours of a jealous woman
Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth.
It seems his sleeps were hinder’d by thy railing,
And thereof comes it that his head is light.
Thou say’st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings:
Unquiet meals make ill digestions;](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-76-320.jpg)
![Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;
And what’s a fever but a fit of madness?
Thou say’st his sports were hinder’d by thy brawls:
Sweet recreation barr’d, what doth ensue
But moody and dull melancholy . . .
Have scared thy husband from the use of wits.”[15:2]
We need not stay long over the numerous characters who speak
of anger as leading to madness. The term “horn-mad,” however, is
sufficiently interesting to be cleared up here.[15:3]
It is used in two senses. Often it is no more than an emphatic
way of expressing the simple adjective. In this sense it may be
connected with the Scottish word “harns,” meaning “brains,” an
alternative form being “horn-wood.” When Joculo, in Day’s “Law
Tricks,” suggests that “the better half of the townsmen will run horn-
mad,”[16:1] this is clearly the sense in which the words are to be
taken. But in another sense, the source of which is evident, “horn-
mad” is the word used to denote a kind of madness unknown as a
technical term to the medical profession, but very common in the
less elevated portions of our drama. This madness is a thing
“Created
Of woman’s making and her faithless vows”;
the madness, in a word, of the cuckold. Falstaff seems to be punning
on the two senses of the term when he says: “If I have horns to
make me mad, let the proverb go with me: I’ll be horn mad.”[16:2]
Dekker exhibits an especial fondness for this particular pun.
Cordolente, the shopkeeper of “Match Me in London,” whose wife
the King has seduced, says on being informed by that monarch that
he is mad: “I am indeed horn-mad. O me! In the holiest place of the
Kingdom have I caught my undoing.”[16:3] Similar passages can be
found in nearly all Dekker’s plays, whether true madness is actually
in question or not.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-77-320.jpg)
![A world of meaning lies beneath such phrases as “dog-madness,”
“midsummer madness,” “March mad,” “as mad as May butter.”[17:1]
The first refers primarily to hydrophobia, though it is not always
used in that sense; the second is accounted for by the old belief that
insanity was fiercest and most prevalent in midsummer. The phrase
“March mad” is connected with the saying “As mad as a March hare.”
Its explanation is that during the month of March, their breeding
season, hares are wilder than usual. An example of the use of the
phrase might be quoted from Drayton’s (non-dramatic) work,
“Nymphidia”:
“Oberon . . . Grew mad as any hare
When he had sought each place with care
And found his queen was missing.”
“May butter” is unsalted butter, preserved during May for medicinal
use in healing wounds. The connexion of the phrase with madness,
however, is so deep as to be no longer understood!
Finally, among the causes of madness recognised in the
seventeenth century must be mentioned melancholy, though we
shall have to return to this on another page. The common belief
appears to have been, in the words of the Doctors of the Induction
to the “Taming of the Shrew,” that “Melancholy is the nurse of
frenzy,”[17:2] and incipient melancholiacs are constantly adjured by
their nearest and dearest to remember this fact—though their
adjurations seldom have any effect. The Duchess of Malfi, indeed,
hearing in her captivity a “hideous noise,” and being told:
“’Tis the wild consort
Of madmen, lady, whom your tyrant brother
Hath placed about your lodging,”
replies:
“Indeed, I thank him; nothing but noise and folly
Can keep me in my right wits; whereas reason](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-78-320.jpg)
![And silence make me mad.”[18:1]
In the “Lover’s Melancholy,” Prince Palador is presented with a
“Masque of Melancholy” (for which the author was largely indebted
to Burton) in order that his diseased mind may be relieved. These
two cases certainly shew a divergence from the more general
opinion. The first may perhaps be attributed to the Duchess’ desire:
“to make a virtue of necessity,” the second to the fact that Palador’s
disease is not true melancholia, but a state of mind bordering on
affectation—that melancholy affected by more than one of
Shakespeare’s “humorous” characters, of whom it can be said “You
may call it melancholy if you will favour the man, but by my head ’tis
pride.”[18:2]
We may gather next, from our plays, some of the recognised
symptoms of insanity in these early times. Epicene, pretending to
recognise the madness of Morose, says: “Lord, how idly he talks,
and how his eyes sparkle! he looks green about the temples! do you
see what blue spots he has?” Clerimont has his answer ready: “Ay,
’tis melancholy.”[19:1] But these two are over-frivolous; their
diagnosis is untrustworthy; we must turn to surer ground. One
supposed sign of madness was evidently the quickening of the heart
and the pulse. Hamlet, in a well-known passage, ridicules his
mother’s idea that the ghost which he sees is due to “ecstasy”:
“Ecstasy!
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music.”[19:2]
Philaster, declaring his sanity to Arethusa, says:
“Take this sword
And search how temperate a heart I have . . . .”
and again:
“. . . Am I raging now?](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-79-320.jpg)
![If I were mad, I should desire to live.
Sir, feel my pulse, whether have you known
A man in a more equal tune to die.”
Bellario replies:
“Alas, my lord, your pulse keeps madman’s time!
So does your tongue.”[19:3]
That these tests were inadequate is proved by a simple
illustration—in the “Comedy of Errors,” Pinch the exorcist, mistakes
Antipholus’ anger for madness. Luciana cries:
“Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!”
And a courtezan,
“Mark, how he trembles in his ecstasy!”[20:1]
Pinch attempts to feel the “madman’s” pulse, but in any case he
knows that both man and master are possessed:
“I know it by their pale and deadly looks.”[20:2]
The madman was supposed not to be aware of the nature of his
disease. “That proves you mad,” says the Officer in Dekker’s “Honest
Whore,” by a strange piece of reasoning, “because you know it
not.”[20:3] Throughout the plays occurs the same phenomenon. Even
when certain of the mad folk recognise that they are afflicted with
some sort of disease, they resent questioning on it. Guildenstern’s
account of Hamlet is significant of a large number of cases:
“Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But with a crafty madness, keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.”[20:4]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-80-320.jpg)
![The resentment is no doubt due to a subconscious wish of the
madman to hide his loss of that sense of personal identity which is
used by Shakespeare as one of the criteria of madness. Constance’
proof to Pandulph of her entire sanity will be remembered:
“I am not mad; this hair I tear is mine.
My name is Constance; I was Geffrey’s wife;
Young Arthur is my son and he is lost:
I am not mad[21:1]. . .”
Sebastian, in “Twelfth Night,” gives similar evidence:
“This is the air; that is the glorious sun;
This pearl she gave me. I do feel’t and see’t;
And though ’tis wonder that enwraps me thus,
Yet ’tis not madness.”[21:2]
Another symptom of insanity was sleeping with open eyes.
Meleander, in the “Lover’s Melancholy,” “sleeps . . . with eyes open,
and that’s no good sign”[21:3] and the Duchess of Malfi is said to
sleep “like a madman, with (her) eyes open.”[21:4]
A general wildness of demeanour was thought to be characteristic
of both the earlier and the later stages of madness. Songs and
dances are often associated with it; wild laughter, “the usher to a
violent extremity,” accompanied by fulminations against the world in
general; bitter sarcasm, sudden touches of pathos and consequent
outbursts of anger; “thundering” and “roaring,” which can only be
checked by like excesses on the part of others—these are all
common symptoms, together with “raving” on all kinds of subjects.
This wildness, however, is not inconsistent with considerable force
and pregnancy of speech, which might lead some to doubt the
actual presence of insanity; and which is “a happiness that often
madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously
be delivered of.”[22:1] A sense of physical pain, of being “cut to the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/59812-250507205446-74af1ab6/85/Effective-Prototyping-for-Software-Makers-1st-ed-Edition-Jonathan-Arnowitz-81-320.jpg)
Effective Prototyping for Software Makers 1st ed Edition Jonathan Arnowitz
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- 5. Critical Acclaim for Effective Prototyping for Software Makers! Effective Prototyping for Software Makers is the first book in our field that covers the breadth and depth of prototyping methods. Other books and articles focus on a particular prototyping method, but in this book you learn about wireframes, card sorting, storyboard prototyping, Wizard of Oz prototypes, and more! Renown HCI experts Arnowitz, Arent, and Berger have written a comprehensive book that is filled with practical knowledge, passion for prototyping, savvy insights, and clear examples. Effective Prototyping for Software Makers is the sine qua non resource for prototyping and should be required reading for students, HCI practitioners, software developers, and product managers. This book is, quite simply, the best resource on prototyping that you can buy. Chauncey Wilson, Usability Manager, The MathWorks Artists sketch before they paint; writers produce outlines and drafts; architects make drawings and models; aircraft designers take models to their windtunnels-all these activities are forms of prototyping. Designing and building effective software requires deep understanding, and this requires effective prototyping, but most software designers and developers don’t seem to know the full range of available tools, techniques, and processes. Effective Prototyping is written by steadfast and reliable guides who cover prototyping techniques in remarkable depth. This book is a thorough guide to prototyping for both newcomers and the experienced. It will take you step by step as well as explain the purpose of each step. This is the essential handbook of prototyping. Richard P. Gabriel, author of Innovation Happens Elsewhere There are many steps in the development of successful software projects, but one major key is prototyping: rapid, effective methods for testing and refining designs. Effective prototyping can be remarkably simple, yet provide powerful results without delaying the project. Indeed, effective prototyping is often the key to faster development. Up to now, there has been no single source for how it is done. But here, in this comprehensive book, Jonathan Arnowitz, Michael Arent, and Nevin Berger explain all in this essential guide to software prototyping. Everything you ever wanted to know, but had no idea who to ask. Don Norman, Nielsen Norman Group & Northwestern University, author of Emotional Design Anyone involved in design and development of software products, whether for desktop computers, the web, handheld devices, or any other platform, will want to read Effective Prototyping for Software Makers. This book provides a persuasive business case for
- 6. prototyping as a way to reduce risk and increase the likelihood of customer adoption and loyalty. It shows how prototypes not only improve product quality, but also support collaborative work, help build product strategy, and create a shared sense of purpose among development team members. The book presents a comprehensive survey of tools and techniques and provides practical, detailed explanations, with illustrations, of how to plan and build prototypes. The authors draw on their deep professional experience to recommend appropriate prototyping techniques for various stages of product development. This important advice will undoubtedly save many readers from choosing the wrong method at the wrong time. Whether you are the manager of a development team or a developer or designer working on a user interface product, this book will expand your appreciation of prototyping and give you countless ways of doing your work better. Whether you read it cover-to-cover or just dip in for some just-in-time assistance, this book gives you a practical and theoretical foundation for making your own effective prototypes. This is an ideal text for professional software engineers and designers who are new to prototyping as well as students in engineering, design, and human factors. The concepts and techniques presented in this volume should be considered part of the foundational knowledge for anyone in the software development field. I recommend this book to any software company that wants to improve their capability to build great products. Jim Faris, The Management Innovation Group LLC
- 7. EFFECTIVE PROTOTYPING FOR SOFTWARE MAKERS
- 8. Effective Prototyping for Software Makers Jonathan Arnowitz, Michael Arent, Nevin Berger The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design Jonathan Pruitt and Tamara Adlin Cost-Justifying Usability Edited by Randolph Bias and Deborah Mayhew User Interface Design and Evaluation Debbie Stone, Caroline Jarrett, Mark Woodroffe, Shailey Minocha Rapid Contextual Design Karen Holtzblatt, Jessamyn Burns Wendell and Shelley Wood Voice Interaction Design: Crafting the New Conversational Speech Systems Randy Allen Harris Understanding Users: A Practical Guide to User Requirements Methods, Tools, and Techniques Catherine Courage and Kathy Baxter The Web Application Design Handbook: Best Practices for Web-Based Software Susan Fowler and Victor Stanwick The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone’s Impact on Society Richard Ling Information Visualization: Perception for Design, 2nd Edition Colin Ware Interaction Design for Complex Problem Solving: Developing Useful and Usable Software Barbara Mirel The Craft of Information Visualization: Readings and Reflections Written and edited by Ben Bederson and Ben Shneiderman HCI Models, Theories, and Frameworks: Towards a Multidisciplinary Science Edited by John M. Carroll Web Bloopers: 60 Common Web Design Mistakes, and How to Avoid Them Jeff Johnson Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research Mike Kuniavsky Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces Carolyn Snyder Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do B. J. Fogg Coordinating User Interfaces for Consistency Edited by Jakob Nielsen Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites that Work Tom Brinck, Darren Gergle, and Scott D.Wood Usability Engineering: Scenario-Based Development of Human-Computer Interaction Mary Beth Rosson and John M. Carroll Your Wish is My Command: Programming by Example Edited by Henry Lieberman GUI Bloopers: Don’ts and Dos for Software Developers and Web Designers Jeff Johnson Information Visualization: Perception for Design Colin Ware Robots for Kids: Exploring New Technologies for Learning Edited by Allison Druin and James Hendler Information Appliances and Beyond: Interaction Design for Consumer Products Edited by Eric Bergman Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think Written and edited by Stuart K. Card, Jock D. Mackinlay, and Ben Shneiderman The Design of Children’s Technology Edited by Allison Druin Web Site Usability: A Designer’s Guide Jared M. Spool, Tara Scanlon, Will Schroeder, Carolyn Snyder, and Terri DeAngelo The Usability Engineering Lifecycle: A Practitioner’s Handbook for User Interface Design Deborah J. Mayhew Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt Human-Computer Interface Design: Success Stories, Emerging Methods, and Real World Context Edited by Marianne Rudisill, Clayton Lewis, Peter P. Polson, and Timothy D. McKay The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies Series Editors: • Stuart Card, PARC • Jonathan Grudin, Microsoft • Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group
- 9. EFFECTIVE PROTOTYPING FOR SOFTWARE MAKERS Jonathan Arnowitz Michael Arent Nevin Berger AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON NEW YORK • OXFORD • PARIS • SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO Morgan Kaufmann Publishers is an imprint of Elsevier
- 10. Publisher Diane Cerra Publishing Services Manager George Morrison Production Editor Dawnmarie Simpson Assistant Editor Asma Palmeiro Cover Design Eric DeCicco Text Design Yvo Riezebos Composition Integra Software Services, Pvt., Ltd., Pondicherry, India, www.integra-india.com Copyeditor Graphic World Publishing Services Proofreader Graphic World Publishing Services Indexer Graphic World Publishing Services Interior printer Transcontinental Printing Interglobe Cover printer Transcontinental Printing Interglobe Morgan Kaufmann Publishers is an imprint of Elsevier. 500 Sansome Street, Suite 400, San Francisco, CA 94111 This book is printed on acid-free paper. © 2007, Michael Arent, Jonathan Arnowitz, and Nevin Berger. Published by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks or registered trademarks. In all instances in which Morgan Kaufmann Publishers is aware of a claim, the product names appear in initial capital or all capital letters. Readers, however, should contact the appropriate companies for more complete information regarding trademarks and registration. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone: (44) 1865 843830, fax: (44) 1865 853333, E-mail: permissions@elsevier.com. You may also complete your request online via the Elsevier homepage (http://elsevier.com), by selecting “Support Contact” then “Copyright and Permission” and then “Obtaining Permissions.” Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Arnowitz, Jonathan. Effective prototyping for software makers/Jonathan Arnowitz, Michael Arent, Nevin Berger. – 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-12-088568-9 (alk. paper) 1. Computer software–Development. I. Arent, Michael. II. Berger, Nevin. III. Title. QA76.76.D47A762 2006 005.1–dc22 2006019373 ISBN 13: 978-0-12-088568-8 ISBN 10: 0-12-088568-9 For information on all Morgan Kaufmann publications, visit our Web site at www.mkp.com or www.books.elsevier.com Printed in Canada. 06 07 08 09 10 5 4 3 2 1
- 11. To Morris Arnowitz and in memory of Harriet Welton Arnowitz. —Jonathan Arnowitz In memory of Jack and Dodie Arent. —Michael Arent In memory of Gene Berger and Sam Norman. —Nevin Berger DEDICATIONS
- 12. 4HIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
- 13. ACKNOWLEGEMENTS xxvii PREFACE xxix CHAPTER 1 WHY PROTOTYPING? 3 What Is a Prototype? 3 An Historical Perspective of Prototyping 4 Leonardo da Vinci: The Thinking Man’s Inventor 5 Thomas Alva Edison: Inventor Prototyper 6 Henry Dreyfuss: Designer Prototyper 8 The Purpose of Prototyping Software 9 Will the Design Work Properly? 10 Can the Design Be Produced Economically? 11 How Will Users and Other Stakeholders Respond to the Design? 12 Which Approach Can Be Taken to Get From Concept to Product? 14 How Can Prototyping Support Product Design Specification? 15 How Can Prototyping Contribute to Better Product Scheduling and Budget Planning? 15 Summary 16 References 18 CHAPTER 2 THE EFFECTIVE PROTOTYPING PROCESS 21 Phase I: Plan (Chapters 3–5) 21 Step 1: Verify the Requirements (Chapter 3) 22 Step 2: Create a Task/Screen Flow (Chapter 4) 22 Step 3: Specifying Content and Fidelity (Chapter 5) 22 CONTENTS
- 14. Phase II: Specification (Chapters 6–8) 22 Step 4: Determine the Right Prototyping Characteristics (Chapter 6) 22 Step 5: Choose a Prototyping Method (Chapter 7) 23 Step 6: Choose a Prototyping Tool (Chapter 8) 23 Phase III: Design (Chapters 9 and 10) 23 Step 7: Formulate Design Criteria (Chapter 9) 24 Step 8: Create the Prototype (Chapter 10) 24 Phase IV: Results (Chapters 11–13) 24 Step 9: Review the Prototype (Chapter 11) 24 Step 10: Validate the Design (Chapter 12) 24 Step 11: Implement the Design (Chapter 13) 25 Summary 25 PHASE I | PLAN YOUR PROTOTYPE 28 CHAPTER 3 VERIFY PROTOTYPE ASSUMPTIONS AND REQUIREMENTS 31 Prototyping Requirements Are Not Software Requirements 32 Transformation of Assumptions to Requirements 33 Step 1: Gather Requirements 34 Step 2: Inventorize the Requirements 36 Step 3: Prioritize Requirements and Assumptions 38 Requirements and the Big Picture 39 Iteration 1: From Idea to First Visualization 39 Iteration 2: From Quick Wireframe to Wireframe 42 Iteration 3: From Wireframe to Storyboard 43 Iteration 4: From Storyboard to Paper Prototype 44 Iteration 5: From Paper Prototype to Coded Prototype 45 Iteration 6: From Coded Prototype to Software Requirements 46 Summary 48 References 48 CHAPTER 4 DEVELOP TASK FLOWS AND SCENARIOS 51 Task Flow 51 Task Layer Maps 52 Step 1: Create List of Tasks 53 x | Contents
- 15. Step 2: Identify Dependencies 54 Step 3: Layer Task Items 57 Step 4: Remove Redundant Dependencies 58 Dependency Diagram 59 Step 1: Prioritize Requirements 60 Step 2: Highlight Key Tasks 60 Step 3: Identify Needs 62 Swim Lane Diagrams 65 Step 1: Identify User Tasks 66 Step 2: Identify User Roles 68 Step 3: Layout User Roles and Task Flows 70 Step 4: Identify and Visualize Interrelationships 71 Usage Scenarios 72 Step 1: Sketch Out Plot 74 Step 2: Choose Cast 75 Step 3: Outline Plot 76 Step 4: Mark Points in Outline 77 Summary 79 References 81 CHAPTER 5 DEFINE PROTOTYPE CONTENT AND FIDELITY 85 Prototype Fidelity 86 Low Fidelity 87 High Fidelity 89 Prototype Content 89 Information Design 91 Techniques to Adjust the Fidelity of Information Design 92 Interaction Design and Navigation Model 93 Techniques to Adjust the Fidelity of Interaction Design and Navigation Model 94 Visual Design 94 Techniques to Adjust the Fidelity of Visual Design 95 Editorial Content 96 Techniques to Adjust the Fidelity of the Editorial Content 97 Brand Expression 97 Increasing Brand Fidelity 98 Decreasing Brand Fidelity 98 Contents | xi
- 16. System Performance/Behavior 99 Techniques to Adjust the Fidelity of the System Performance/Behavior 100 How to Select the Right Prototype Content Expression 100 Step 1: Define the objective and focus 101 Step 2: Determine emphasis/deemphasis 101 Step 3: Select appropriate fidelity 102 Summary 104 References 105 PHASE II | SPECIFICATION OF PROTOTYPING 106 CHAPTER 6 DETERMINE CHARACTERISTICS 109 Introduction 109 Prototype Characteristics 109 Audience: Internal/External 110 Internal Audiences 111 Design Team Members 112 Upper Management 112 Lead Designers 112 Product Managers 112 Marketing and Sales Managers 112 Developers 113 Technical Writers 113 Domain Specialists/Analysts 113 Quality Assurance Engineers 113 External Audiences 113 End Users (Consumers) 114 Customers (Purchasers, Not End Users) 115 Financial Stakeholders 115 Domain Specialists and Analysts 115 Stage: Early/Midterm/Late 115 Early Stage 116 Midterm Stage 116 Late Stage 117 xii | Contents
- 17. Speed: Rapid/Diligent 118 Rapid Speed 118 Diligent Speed 119 Longevity: Short/Medium/Long 120 Short 120 Medium 121 Long 121 Expression: Conceptual/Experiential 121 Conceptual Expression 121 Experiential Expression 123 Style: Narrative/Interactive 124 Narrative Style 125 Interactive Style 125 Medium: Physical/Digital 126 Physical Medium 127 Digital Medium 128 Step-by-Step Guide to Selecting the Right Characteristics 128 Step 1: Specify Basic Requirements 129 Step 2: Analyze Expression 130 Step 3: Determine Style and Medium 131 Summary 133 References 134 CHAPTER 7 CHOOSE A METHOD 137 Introduction 137 Prototyping Methods 137 Card Sorting 137 What Is Card Sorting? 137 How Does Card Sorting Work? 138 Wireframe Prototyping 138 What Is Wireframe Prototyping? 138 How Do Wireframes Work? 139 Storyboard Prototyping 139 What Is Storyboard Prototyping? 139 How Do Storyboard Prototypes Work? 140 Contents | xiii
- 18. Paper Prototyping 140 What Is Paper Prototyping? 140 How Does Paper Prototyping Work? 140 Digital Prototyping 141 What Is Digital Prototyping? 141 How Does a Digital Prototype Work? 142 Blank Model Prototyping 143 What Is Blank Model Prototyping? 143 How Does a Blank Model Prototype Work? 144 Video Prototyping 144 What Is Video Prototyping? 144 How Does a Video Prototype Work? 145 Wizard-of-Oz Prototyping 145 What Is Wizard-of-Oz Prototyping? 145 How Does a Wizard-of-Oz Prototype Work? 146 Coded Prototyping 146 What Is Coded Prototyping? 146 How Does a Coded Prototype Work? 147 Choosing the Right Prototyping Method for You 147 Summary 151 References 152 CHAPTER 8 CHOOSE A PROTOTYPING TOOL 157 How To Choose the Prototyping Tool 159 Step 1: Select Method 159 Step 2: Map Method to Tools 160 Step 3: List Available Tools 164 Step 4: Determine Timing 166 Step 5: Determine Suitability 167 Step 6: Select Tool 168 Next Step 170 PHASE III | DESIGN YOUR PROTOTYPE 174 CHAPTER 9 ESTABLISH THE DESIGN CRITERIA 177 Introduction 177 Visual Design Guidelines 179 xiv | Contents
- 19. Visual Design Guideline 1: Information Flow (Directional) 179 Visual Design Guideline 2: Grid-Based Organization (Organizational) 181 Visual Design Guideline 3: Rhythm and Pattern (Directional) 182 Visual Design Guideline 4: Unity and Variety (Organizational) 183 Visual Design Guideline 5: Typographic Structure (Organizational) 184 Visual Design Guideline 6: Balance (Directional) 187 Visual Design Guideline 7: Logical Grouping (Organizational) 189 User Interface Guidelines 190 User Interface Guideline 1: Progressive Disclosure (Directional) 191 User Interface Guideline 2: Efficiency (Organizational) 193 User Interface Guideline 3: Fitt’s Law (Directional) 193 User Interface Guideline 4: Learnability (Directional) 194 User Interface Guideline 5: Speak the Audience’s Language (Organizational) 194 User Interface Guideline 6: Explicitly Show Required Actions and Fields (Organizational) 195 User Interface Guideline 7: User Interfaces Should Reflect International Sensitivity (Organizational) 196 User Interface Guideline 8: Universal Accessibility (Organizational) 196 User Interface Guideline 9: Users Should Feel in Control (Organizational) 197 User Interface Guideline 10: Minimize User’s Memory Load (Organizational) 197 User Interface Guideline 11: Satisfaction (Organizational) 198 Step-by-Step Guidelines 198 Step 1: Review Guidelines 198 Step 2: Formulate Criteria 199 Step 3: Finish Criteria 199 References 201 CHAPTER 10 CREATE THE DESIGN 205 Introduction 205 Design and Construct Your Prototype 208 Step 1: Determine Highest Priority Screens 209 Contents | xv
- 20. Step 2: Blockout most Important Regions 210 Step 3: Layout Highest Priority Screen 212 Step 4: Layout Remaining Priority Screens 214 Step 5: Specify Design Rationale 215 Summary 216 PHASE IV | RESULTS OF PROTOTYPING 218 CHAPTER 11 REVIEW THE DESIGN: THE INTERNAL REVIEW 221 Step 1: Review your Defined Audience 223 Step 2: Set Goals for Each Version 224 Step 3: Set Expectations for Reviewers 225 Communicate What You Are Doing 225 Step 4: How You’ll Present 227 What Makes a Good Facilitator? 228 Setting an Agenda 228 Step 5: Planning the Next Steps 231 Summary 231 References 232 CHAPTER 12 VALIDATE AND ITERATE THE PROTOTYPE 235 The Strategy of Validating and Ensuring Usability via the Prototype 235 Usability Testing: The Tactics of Validating and Ensuring Usability via the Prototype 236 Evaluating Your Design 237 Iterating Your Design 240 References 240 CHAPTER 13 DEPLOY THE DESIGN 243 Your Prototype Is Ready for Deployment 243 Step 1: Set Expectations for Handoff 244 Step 2: Prototype Distribution Strategies 244 What Are the Most Appropriate Ways to Hand Off Your Prototype? 245 Managing Issues That Arise After Handing Off Your Prototype 246 Step 3: Documenting Prototyping Results 248 xvi | Contents
- 21. The Product Design Guide 248 Summary 249 References 249 CHAPTER 14 CARD SORTING PROTOTYPING 251 Description 251 Characteristics 252 An Overview of What a Card Sorting Prototype Looks Like 253 Types of Card Sorting 254 Information Architecture 254 Navigation Model for Website or Application 255 Menu Structure 255 Terminology Validation 255 Validation of Conceptual and Mental Models 256 Step-by-Step Guide to Card Sorting Prototypes 256 Step 1: Setting the Starting Point 257 Step 2: Designing the Session 258 Step 3: Preparing the Session 259 Step 4: Conducting the Session 261 Step 5: Synthesizing Results 262 Step 6: Preparing for Reuse 264 Example Spreadsheets 269 Next Iteration If You Would Leave This Prototype 270 References 270 Available Card Sorting Software [Courage and Baxter 2004] 271 CHAPTER 15 WIREFRAME PROTOTYPING 273 Description 273 Different Perspectives of a Wireframe 273 Characteristics 274 An Overview of What a Wireframe Prototype Looks Like 276 Different Goals of Wireframes 279 The Meaning of a Requirement 280 A Quick Visualization to Understand Scope, Structure, and Layout 280 An Idea Sandbox to Play Around With Different Product Ideas/Functions/Requirements 280 Contents | xvii
- 22. Make Sure All Members of the Software-Making Team Are on the Same Page 281 A Medium to Begin Documenting Requirements or Issues That Have To Do With Early Designs 281 A Quick Visualization of Task Flow Through an Idea 281 Inform More Diligent Prototyping Methods 281 Who Participates in the Wireframe Creation Process 281 Step-by-Step Guide 282 Step 1: What Is the Source of the Wireframe Content? 283 Step 2: Who Are the Stakeholders? 285 Step 3: What Tool Do I Use? 286 Step 4: How Do I Do It? 288 Step 5: How Do I Evolve It? 291 Leaving Wireframes: The Next Iteration 292 References 292 CHAPTER 16 STORYBOARD PROTOTYPING 295 Description 295 Characteristics 296 An Overview of What a Storyboard Prototype Looks Like 298 Types of Storyboards 299 High-Priority Task Scenarios 299 A Day in the Life of a User 300 A Day in the Life of a Work Group 300 Critical Incidents or Critical Task Situations 300 Sunny Day 301 Who Participates in the Storyboard Creation Process 301 Step-by-Step Guide 302 Step 1: Vision 303 Step 2: Idea Board 305 Step 3: Context 306 Step 4: Background 307 Step 5: Developing the Scenario 308 Step 6: Including Design 310 Step 7: Storyboard Session 311 How the Storyboard Session Works 312 Best-Practices Storyboard Planning 312 xviii | Contents
- 23. How the Storyboard Is Iterated 313 Next Iteration Going Beyond This Prototype 314 References 315 CHAPTER 17 PAPER PROTOTYPING 317 Description 317 Characteristics 318 What Does a Paper Prototype Get You? 319 Overview of What a Paper Prototype Looks Like 323 Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Paper Prototypes 324 Step 1: Create Scenario 325 Step 2: Inventory UI Elements 326 Step 3: Create UI Elements 327 Step 4: Run through scenario 328 Step 5: Internal Review 328 Step-by-Step Guide to Test the Prototype 331 Step 1: Revise Scenario 332 Step 2: Revise Inventory UI Elements 333 Step 3: Create UI Elements 334 Step 4: Pilot Run through Scenario 335 Step 5: Internal Review 336 Step 6: Prepare Kit 337 Step 7: The Prototype Session 338 Step 8: Reiterate 339 Next Iteration After a Paper Prototype 340 References 340 CHAPTER 18 DIGITAL INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPING 343 Description 343 Introduction 343 Characteristics 345 What Does a Digital Prototype Get You? 346 Points in Common with Paper Prototyping 347 Digital Advantages Over Paper Prototyping 348 Disadvantages Over Paper Prototyping 349 Overview of What a Digital Prototype Looks Like 350 Contents | xix
- 24. Step-by-Step Guide to Create a Digital Prototype 351 Step 1: Create Scenario 352 Step 2: Inventory UI Screens and Tasks 353 Step 3: Create Template 354 Step 4: Create UI Elements 355 Step 5: Link up Created Screens 356 Step 6: Internal Review 357 Next Iteration After a Digital Interactive Prototype 361 References 361 CHAPTER 19 BLANK MODEL PROTOTYPING 363 Description 363 Introduction 363 Characteristics 364 Overview of What a Blank Model Prototype Looks Like 364 Who Participates in the Blank Model Creation Process 365 What Are the Benefits of a Blank Model Prototype? 365 Step-by-Step Guide to Blank Model Prototype Creation 368 Step 1: Plan the Study 369 Step 2: Scenarios 370 Step 3: Supplies 371 Step 4: Preparation 372 Step 5: Study Sessions 373 Step 6: Analysis 374 Step 7: Reiterate 375 The Blank Model Prototype Creation Session 376 Step 1: Opening 377 Step 2: Scenarios 378 Step 3: Verify 379 Step 4: Construction 380 Step 5: Review 381 Step 6: Post-Interview 382 Step 7: Closure 383 Next Iteration After Blank Model Prototyping 385 References 385 xx | Contents
- 25. CHAPTER 20 VIDEO PROTOTYPING 387 Introduction 387 Visionary Video Prototypes 387 Holistic Video Prototypes 387 What Is a Video Prototype? 388 Who Makes Use of Visionary Video Prototyping? 389 What Are the Benefits of a Visionary Video Prototype? 389 Holistic Video Prototyping 389 Characteristics 390 What a Video Prototype Looks Like 393 Who Participates in the Video Prototype Creation Process? 393 Step-by-Step Guide 394 Step 1: Observation of Users 395 Step 2: Video Brainstorming 396 Step 3: Video Prototyping 398 Step 4: System Evaluation 399 How to Create a Visionary Video Prototype 399 Next Iteration After Video Prototyping 401 References 401 CHAPTER 21 WIZARD-OF-OZ PROTOTYPING 403 Description 403 What Is a Wizard-of-Oz Prototype? 404 Characteristics 405 Overview of What a WoO Prototype Looks Like 406 Who is Involved with Wizard-of-Oz Prototypes 407 What Are the Benefits of a WoO Prototype? 408 Step-by-Step Guide 409 Procedure for a WoO Prototype for a Spoken Natural Language or Agent-Based Interaction 410 Step 1: Plan 410 Step 2: Strategy 411 Step 3: Construct 412 Step 4: Recruit 413 Step 5: Prototype Script 414 Step 6: Pilot 415 Contents | xxi
- 26. Step 7: Usability Testing 416 Variation 1: WoO for Simulating Advanced Handheld or Portable Devices 416 Variation 2: WoO Method to Help Test an Unfinished Design 417 What Content are Included in a Wizard-of-Oz Prototype? 418 Next Iteration after Wizard-of-Oz Prototyping 418 References 419 CHAPTER 22 CODED PROTOTYPING 421 Description 421 What Is a Coded Prototype? 421 Characteristics 422 Overview of What a Coded Prototype Looks Like 424 Types of Coded Prototypes 424 Who Creates Coded Prototypes? 425 What Are the Benefits of a Coded Prototype? 425 What Is the Source for Coded Prototype Content? 426 What Is the Content of a Coded Prototype? 426 Step-by-Step Procedure 427 Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Sales Demos 427 Step 1: Select Scenario 428 Step 2: Inventory UI Elements 429 Step 3: Develop UI Elements 430 Step 4: Run through Scenario 431 Step 5: Internal Review 432 Step-by-Step Guide to Creating High-Fidelity Interactive Coded Prototypes 432 Step 1: Select Scenarios 433 Step 2: Inventory UI Elements 434 Step 3: Develop UI Elements 435 Step 4: Internal Review 436 Step 5: Usability Testing 436 Next Iteration After Coded Prototyping 439 References 439 xxii | Contents
- 27. CHAPTER 23 PROTOTYPING WITH OFFICE SUITE APPLICATIONS 441 Introduction 441 Why Cover Three Office Applications in One Chapter? 441 Similarities and Differences 441 Sophisticated Graphics: Something They’re All Missing 443 Who Would Use Office Suite Applications for Prototyping? 443 Microsoft Word 444 Advantages 444 Disadvantages 444 Appropriate Method 445 Example: Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Wireframe in MS Word 445 Step 1: Prepare Document 446 Step 2: Begin Framework 448 Step 3: Wireframe Design 450 Step 4: Text Documentation 453 Usability Testing 455 Microsoft PowerPoint 455 Advantages 455 Disadvantages 456 Appropriate Method 457 Creating a Storyboard in PowerPoint 457 Scenario 457 Step 1: Set Context 458 Step 2: Enter Scenario 459 Step 3: Add Images 460 Step 4: Add Notes 462 Step 5: Perform Run Through 463 Microsoft Excel 463 Advantages 463 Disadvantages 465 Appropriate Method 465 Creating a Prototype in Excel 466 Step 1: Get Ready 467 Step 2: Create Canvas 468 Step 3: Building a Box with a Header 473 Contents | xxiii
- 28. Step 4: Add Text 478 Step 5: Create an Input Field 480 Step 6: Adding Art 482 Step 7: Start on Second Page 483 Testing 485 MS Office Applications 485 References 485 CHAPTER 24. PROTOTYPING WITH VISIO 487 Introduction to Visio as a Prototyping Tool 487 Overview of Effective Prototyping with Visio 487 Ideal Methods for Using Visio 487 Characteristics 487 Target Audience for Visio 489 Useful Prototyping Features in Visio 489 Reuse 489 Advantages and Disadvantages of using Visio for Prototyping 490 Advantages 490 Disadvantages 490 Documenting a Design in Visio 491 Business Scenario 491 Use Case Description 492 Step-by-Step Example 492 Step 1: Getting Started (Set Up Your Environment and Stencils) 492 Step 2: Create the Main Window 493 Step 3: Window Functions (Design Top-Level Menu and Toolbar) 498 Step 4: Design Content Area (Mockup Areas to Display Files on the User’s Computer and Remote FTP Server) 502 Step 5: Reuse 509 Step 6: Mockup Interaction 510 Step 7: Different States 515 State 1: Before Files Are Uploaded 515 State 2: Files Are Currently Being Uploaded 516 State 3: After Files Are Uploaded 517 Presenting and Distributing a Visio Prototype 517 xxiv | Contents
- 29. CHAPTER 25. PROTOTYPING WITH ACROBAT 519 Introducing Acrobat 519 Overview of Effective Prototyping with Acrobat 519 Characteristics 519 PDF Portable Document Format 519 The Flavors of Acrobat 519 Acrobat and Prototyping 521 Prototype Characteristics 522 Prototype Content and Methods 522 Building PDF Prototypes 524 Step 1: Get Ready 525 Step 2: Prepare for Conversion 526 Step 3: Convert to PDF 528 Step 4: Add Links 531 Step 5: Add Forms 538 Adding Radio Buttons 544 Adding Buttons 546 Adding List and Combo Boxes 550 Tips for Adding Forms 555 Step 6: Add Media 559 Step 7: Set global properties 563 Sample Files 566 Putting the Prototype to Work 566 Team Review 567 PDF Prototypes in Usability Testing 567 Next Steps 567 Some Closing Thoughts 569 References 569 GLOSSARY 571 SUBJECT INDEX 577 ABOUT THE AUTHORS 585 Contents | xxv
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- 31. Where to begin? The easiest place to begin is with our devoted families. We couldn’t have accom- plished the Herculean effort of this book without the unwavering, loyal and loving support of: Jacqueline Arent, Nick Arent, Vanessa Arent, Minne Fekkes, Sarah Arnowitz, Lisa Norman, Eli Berger, Ezra Berger, and Emma Berger. This book could not have been adequately written and produced without the vote of confidence, guidance and support of our publisher and patron saint, Diane Cerra. We extend our sincere gratitude to the contributors, who helped in ways beyond their individual chapters: Ji Kim and Dave Rogers. We want to graciously acknowl- edge those special people who devoted their time to diligently and substantively reviewing the manuscript: Jim Faris, Dirk-Jan Hoets, and Deborah Mayhew. We are indebted to our tireless editor, Casey Jones. We also want to thank those who gave us their support along the way: Laurie Vertelney, Jeff Herman, Meg Dastrup, Wendy Mackay, Don Norman, Chauncey Wilson and Mary Czerwinski. With so much guidance, any inaccuracies that remain are truly the fault of the authors. And last but not least we want to thank the Effective Prototyping photo shoot team: Mark Detweiler, Sabine Kabel-Eckes, Sally Lawler Kennedy, and Mohini Wettasinghe. We have chosen not to use real life test subjects or users in this book. We feel to do so would be an abuse of the test participant’s cooperation. So thank you team for making these illustrative photos possible by giving up your already diminished free time for the photo sessions. Lastly, we would like to thank a few people who have personally helped us, or otherwise inspired us to get to the point in each of our lives where we could write this book. Nevin: My first thanks goes out to my co-writers who have shouldered the heavy lifting in this endeavor. Jonathan, who held the vision, inspired us and always had wonderful wine available to keep our fortitude up. Michael who could always could be counted on for his strength, thoroughgoing and a plate of baklava for treats. In ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- 32. xxviii | Acknowledgements my user experience career I have always found creativity as my greatest tool. I have been inspired by creative artists and thinkers such as Alberto Giacometti, Albert Einstein, William De Kooning, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to name but a few. Michael: My career in technology user experience design and management has been an adventurous and exotic Marco Polo-like journey with many inspiring influ- encers: Leonardo da Vinci, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Wassily Kandinsky, Le Corbusier, Jimi Hendrix, Wolfgang Weingart, Laurie Anderson, Nicholas Negroponte, Philip Glass, Aaron Marcus, Philippe Starck, Ron Baecker, Joy Mountford, Don Norman, Frank O. Gehry, and Arundathi Roy. Jonathan: It has been a bumpy road to this place where I can write a book like this with such excellent colleagues. I got where I am because of these visionary peo- ple: my thankfulness is both profound and humble (if in some cases a little late): Dr. Harold G. Marcus, Howard Thomas, Jo Ann Avalos, Alan Balch, Piet Vonk, Martin Simpson, Tasoula Georgiou-Hadjitofi, Lieven Baeten, Gijs der Waal, Esther Dunning, David Zeidman, Bill McCarthy, John Thackara, Wendy Mackay, Marilyn Tremaine, Joseph Konstan, Jose Arcellana, Motasim Najeeb, Diana Gray and most recently Michael Arent and Dan Rosenberg. For inspiration, I have turned to many times: Gustav Mahler, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the towering figure who keeps us all honest Don Norman. Michael Arent, Jonathan Arnowitz, Nevin Berger The San Francisco Bay Area, California, 2006
- 33. PREFACE EFFECTIVE PROTOTYPING, WHY THIS BOOK? Effective Prototyping may seem like an odd title: Who ineffectively prototypes? Actually, we all do. We’d all like to think our prototypes are effective and that we have a sophisticated understanding of prototyping. In reality this isn’t true due to the simple fact no book we know of addresses these concepts. In fact, most proto- types are often either overachieving or underachieving, neither of which serves soft- ware-making purposes well. It’s the effective prototype that assures your prototype will hit the mark. OVERACHIEVING PROTOTYPE An overachieving prototype artificially wows an audience by showing inappropriate high fidelity too early in the software creation process. An artificial high fidelity, while it may impress, will often cause many design decisions to be made prema- turely – a leading cause for finding yourself designed into a corner. This usually happens due to thoughtful striving to be as thorough as possible without under- standing early in the process how thorough to be. When design decisions are made early, little (or no) room remains for successfully evolving a software concept to an optimal outcome. UNDERACHIEVING PROTOTYPE An underachieving prototype under whelms the audience through its ambiguity, and gives the presenter maximum, even dangerous, flexibility to fill in the blanks with persuasive verbal descriptions. The lack knowing what should be thorough leads to the dangerous situation of an unshared understanding of what a prototype represents. Again, this is generally caused by a lack of guidance as to what should be thorough and what not. An undeveloped prototype leaves vague, aspects that should be concrete. The result is a prototype that leaves it to the reader to fill in the blanks.
- 34. EFFECTIVE PROTOTYPE Overachieving prototypes close discussions early in the process by allowing deci- sions to be made too early. These seeming decisions can become confusing to dif- ferent stakeholders. By contrast, underachieving prototypes give little to inspire the next steps of design. Effective prototypes combine the right mix of conceptual and experiential prototyping to accurately express the current state of understanding of the software product or service. Effective prototyping is a learnable, repeatable process where the prototyping approach depends on effective analysis of the current state of requirements as well as the current needs of your organization. Effective prototyping uses the right prototyping tool, method, and process given the appropriate need. In order to succeed at prototyp- ing, the effective prototyper must understand all of the variables involved in prototyp- ing, including their advantages and disadvantages. The effective prototype allows the audience to understand ideas without being overwhelmed by superfluous details. Anyone can be an effective prototyper; and anyone can prototype with software tools they already know how to use. No doubt for some people this statement raises a few questions. THE YES QUESTIONS Can I prototype? Yes. Anyone can prototype if they understand their goals and cur- rent stage in the software development process. Can I prototype with the tools I already know (or have readily available)? Yes. You can adapt almost any tool to create a successful prototype. A The back of a dinner napkin? Yes. A Paper? Yes. A Presentation tools? Yes. A Office productivity software, such as a word processor or spreadsheet appli- cation? Yes. A Video software? Yes A Programming software? Yes Will it be easy for me to prototype even though I haven’t already incorporated it into the software creation process? Yes. Prototyping can be incorporated in any stage of the software design process, even at multiple stages for varying purposes. It’s never too late to start prototyping. Almost anywhere in the software creation process, you can slip in some form of prototyping. A little and late is better than none, and your product will be better for it. THE NO ANSWERS Do you need graphic software experience to prototype effectively? No. Graphic software tools are just one of many tools that can be used. xxx | Preface
- 35. Do you need special prototyping tools in order to prototype effectively? No. Depending on the method, you can use almost any tool you have available, even a word processor. Do you need to be a designer (or an artist) to prototype effectively? No. Not all prototypes will have logos and pictures in them, and many that do require no more skill than capturing and pasting what you find on your corporate website or a clip art library. Do you need to be a developer to prototype effectively? No. Is implementing a prototyping process into my software development timeline going to cost a lot and take a lot of time? No. Prototyping can be included at vari- ous stages in the software development process, using a variety of styles, many of which are inexpensive and rapid. We don’t want you to just accept the above answers at face value, this book aims to prove it. Effective prototyping means understanding prototyping characteristics, content, methods and tools. SHIFTING PRIORITIES IN FAVOR OF EFFECTIVE PROTOTYPING The current focus on rapid software development often uses prototyping too late in the development process. This late implementation of design work seems to occur due to a focus on the wrong priorities rather than bad practice – a focus on func- tionality rather than usable functionality. The industry fixation with and emphasis on software production comes at the cost of diminished emphasis and priority on the conceptual and design aspects of software product or services development. What else can explain the fact that compared to the few published works on software design and usability there is a plethora of books concentrated on software engineer- ing and production. Until this book, not a single work was dedicated solely to one of the most important activities in software creation: prototyping. With this book explaining the characteristics, methods, and tools of prototyping, in addition to where and how prototypes fit in the software creation process, we hope to shift the priorities of software making toward software conception, design and usability. CHARACTERISTICS Prototyping characteristics are the many aspects that define a prototype. Until recently, the industry has only discerned between high and low fidelity, and even those terms are often misunderstood. This book defines seven overarching/primary proto- typing characteristics that you will use to select the appropriate prototyping method. CONTENT The content of a prototype is what is contained in your prototype and what you design. A prototype can contain many different kinds of content, including information, visuals, a navigation structure, etc. Preface | xxxi
- 36. METHODS The various methods are what can be used to create a prototype; for example, storyboards, wireframes, paper prototypes, etc. TOOLS Prototyping tools are the software and/or physical tools used to create a prototype. These tools include applications such as office productivity software, Visio, Acrobat, Visual Basic, etc. But really, almost any software productivity application can be a prototyping tool. SOFTWARE IS NOT JUST DEVELOPED IT IS CREATED The term, software development, stresses being driven by engineering rather than its multidisciplinary collaborative nature. The activity, developing software, gives us the impression that the software already exists in some ideal form to be realized by engaging in a methodical scientific process inexorably resulting in the finished software. The prevailing practice we have observed in many companies suggest that, due to its technical nature, software will have a predictable outcome as long as the right engineering methods are followed. The reality is much different, with an overwhelm- ing majority of written code (just like the majority of specified design) never seeing the light of day. It is not necessarily bad development that leads to wasted code or bad software, but rather poorly planned or ill-conceived development processes. Bill Buxton (one of the pioneers in human-computer interaction) made the observation that successful software making is a process more akin to filmmaking than pure engineering. Films are made, not by a waterfall process but rather by doing most of the work upfront and then iterating. A script and cast of characters are known almost in its entirety before filming even begins. When filming begins, there is a constant iteration centered on the core of the script and the cast of characters and reviewing what had been shot each day [Buxton 2003]. It is our view that prototyp- ing should play the same role that a script and cast of characters does in films: it should be the overall plan the core is iterated on. As a part of the software making process, we look more to prototyping as some- thing to be done early and often. In the view of Michael Schrage, co director of MIT’s media lab, prototypes are “shared spaces” that stimulate discussions, debates and decisions that foster innovation and problem resolution. You appreci- ate how they elicit indispensable feedback from customers and end users in usabil- ity testing. [Schrage] Prototypes also elicit feedback from the myriad of key internal stakeholders required to build software. Indeed just as Schrage envisions prototyp- ing as a collaborative tool shared by clients and consultants, it is even more effec- tive among the members of internal software creation teams. Regardless of who you are, this book is dedicated to making you and your team into more effective prototypers. xxxii | Preface
- 37. Preface | xxxiii Business Requirements Functional Requirements Design Technical Requirements Quality Assurance Release FIGURE 1 A waterfall in action. Water falls down to the bottom never to be seen at the top again. THE GREAT WATERFALL METHOD In software engineering, the waterfall method is one of the prevalent processes used to manage software development projects. Waterfall, projects are broken into phases. The waterfall diagram shown in Figure 2 shows that as the software is passed down from one phase to the next. Each team involved with the previous stage hands over the software to the next team with no additional input or responsibility required. This method is considered to be one of the easiest to man- age due to the predictable and closed nature of the outcomes. The major fallacy with this process is the assumption that when a phase is done, the work of that phase has been completed forever. However, in reality, analysis rarely stops with design. Design almost never stops during the Build phase, and so on. The result is an artificial separation and compartmentalization of people who need to work together in collaboration. As shown by Ensor [Ensor 1997] in Figure 3, even attempts to bring iteration into the waterfall process illustrates that this is doomed to failure as time cannot travel backwards. For example, a new business requirement during the build phase, would have a ripple effect causing all previous steps to be revisited: this is not efficient nor realistic. Moreover, we find informal processes, undercutting the waterfall as teams need to work collaboratively to be efficient.
- 38. SOFTWARE MAKING AND SOFTWARE MAKERS – A MODEL FOR SOFTWARE CREATION Too often, software creation is viewed in engineering terms rather than as the cross-disciplinary process it should be perceived as. This claim should not be xxxiv | Preface FIGURE 2 The phases of a waterfall method as many software makers have experienced it. FIGURE 3 The Waterfall method as portrayed in [Ensor 1997]: an attempt to make it iterative (time does not travel backwards unfortunately). Strategy Analysis Design Test Build Transition Production
- 39. interpreted as anti-engineering; engineers and developers are essential allies and partners in software creation. But they are not the only partners in the complex process of software making. Many people and disciplines share equal footing: product managers, visionaries, marketers, functional analysts, sales people, graphic designers, user researchers, interaction designers, etc. Effective Prototyping is not intended to diminish development but to elevate the creation aspect of software making. Moreover, development resources, like all software development resources, are precious and need to be used effectively. It makes sense to perform many of the more open-ended and exploratory activities upfront where the use and costs of iterative design and prototyping are much more effective than later when laborious and costly iteration on software code is required. We would like to introduce a new term, software makers, inspired by Bill Buxton’s filmmaking analogy. This book is for software makers, the individuals who concep- tualize, create and produce software. The term software maker encompasses the different disciplines that collaborate in the software creation process. Software mak- ers include: • Business analysts • Information designers • Usability engineers • Cognitive and social • Interaction designers • User experience designers scientists • Developers • Product and customer • User interface designers support • Domain specialists • Product managers • User interface developers • Functional analysts • Product marketers • Visual designers • HCI professionals • Quality assurance • And other related personnel professionals who help create software. • Human factors • Software architects professionals • Industrial designers • Software engineers • Information architects • Technical writers The list is indeed long, but all of these stakeholders can improve software design by contributing to the prototyping process. While this book is primarily writ- ten for the software maker, it may also appeal to educators and students of user interface and software design. As practitioners, this book makes no claims to aca- demic rigor, but is based on best prototyping and design practices as well as the input from many top designers interviewed for the preparation of this book as well as our own experience in software creation. We would also like to add that our focus is intended to be platform independ- ent. The techniques and tools mentioned in this book are equally appropriate for creating software for web, desktop, kiosk, or handhelds. Preface | xxxv
- 40. THE STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK Because this book is aimed at a broad audience, no assumptions are made about our reader’s prior knowledge. Therefore we’re covering prototyping broadly and not assuming the user has experience in more than one major discipline of software making. Likewise, we have strived to write a stand-alone book. To do this we have included guidelines and tips that only some readers will need. Also, given the broad range of software making disciplines, some sections will inevitably be too basic for some readers. Hopefully, we have clearly marked these sections, such as the HCI guideline of Chapter 10, which will strike some engi- neers and graphic designers as very handy, but our HCI colleagues may find them very basic. Chapter 1: Why Prototyping – presents a case for using prototyping methods. If you are already an experienced prototyper, you may want to skip this chapter but keep it available as a handy reference when trying to convince others of the impor- tance of prototyping. Chapter 1 includes a brief historical perspective, focusing on the influential practitioners of prototyping. Chapters 2–13: The process of effective prototyping The first part of this book focuses on the process of prototyping as presented in Figure 4. This part begins with chapter 2 giving an overview of the entire process. Chapters 3–5 outline the planning phase of the process. Chapters 6–8 cover the specification steps. While chapters 9 and 10 cover design and chapters 11–13 the results. For those who have never prototyped, these chapters will be a handy guide to start. For those who are already familiar with prototyping, these chapters may prove useful to round out or expand your current view of your prototyping practice. For the expert, some chapters may be more helpful than others depending on your experience and knowledge. Chapters 14–22: The most popular methods of prototyping The chapters in the second part cover the most common prototyping methods: how to do them and when to do them. Step by step instructions are given whenever plausible, as well as templates and sample documents. These chapters cover card sorting, wireframe prototyping, storyboard prototyping, paper prototyping, digital interactive prototyping, blank model prototyping, video prototyping, Wizard of Oz prototyping, and coded prototyping. Chapters 23–26: Prototyping tools The third part of this book is meant to match possible prototyping tools with your existing skills. If you’re already familiar with Visio, you may want to go directly to that chapter. If you know Acrobat, then you may want to start with that chapter. The tools covered in this book are office suite applications (word processor, presen- tation software, spreadsheet), Visio, and Acrobat. About the Effective Prototyping web site In addition to this book, purchasers of this book can also get access to the Effective Prototyping web site, which will contain the templates and sample files discussed in this book. The templates and sample files will be in the native format so you can xxxvi | Preface
- 41. edit them/change them to suit your needs. The web site will also be a place to share your experiences with the book, offer suggestions or changes. We hope the discussion will be lively and will contribute to our continued iterations of Effective Prototyping. It is also our hope to add bonus material to the web site that we could not include in the book. The URL for the web site is http://www.effectiveprototyp- ing.com/book To gain access to this web site you need a password. You can get the password by sending an email to booksite@effectiveprototyping.com. In the subject line enter the first five words that appears on page 176. Your password will be sent back to you by email within 48 hours. So let’s start our discussion of effective prototyping by discussing the why of prototyping: why you should prototype and what is the business case for prototyping. Preface | xxxvii Plan 1 Develop Task Flows 2 S T E P P H A S E Specification 2 P H A S E Choose a Method ch 7 5 S T EP Validate the Design ch 12 10 S T EP Deploy the Design ch 13 11 S T EP 3 Create the Design ch 10 8 S T EP Design ch 4 P H A S E 4Results P H A S E Choose a Tool ch 8 6 Define Content and Fidelity ch 5 3 STEP S T EP Determine Characteristics ch 6 4 S T E P Select Design Criteria ch 9 7 S T EP Review the Design ch 11 9 S T E P Verify Requirements 1 S T E P ch 3 FIGURE 4 The phases and steps of effective prototyping.
- 42. REFERENCES Bill Buxton, Software Design from Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Usage-Centered Design, Portsmouth, NH, 26–29 October 2003, pp. 1–15. David Ensor, Ian Stevenson, Oracle Design: The Definitive Guide, O’Reilly Books, New York, NY 1997 Jenny Preece, Y. Rogers, H. Sharp, D. Benyon, S. Holland, T. Carey. Human-Computer Interaction. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1994 Michael Schrage. Serious Play: How the World’s Best Companies Simulate to Innovate. Boston, MA. Harvard Business School Press, 1999 xxxviii | Preface
- 43. EFFECTIVE PROTOTYPING FOR SOFTWARE MAKERS
- 44. CHAPTER WHAT IS A PROTOTYPE? AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF PROTOTYPING THE PURPOSE OF PROTOTYPING SUMMARY REFERENCES
- 45. WHY PROTOTYPING? 1 For many of us, prototyping is essential to creating successful software and successful user experiences. Prototyping ensures success because of its clear depiction of software requirements: instead of describing requirements it visualizes them. If done correctly, prototyping allows us to experiment in the safety of a form which can be easily changed without much loss of time or wasted effort when compared to re-programming software. Done effectively, prototyping enables us to go beyond just meeting requirements, by enabling experimentation and exploration for the optimal solutions. Done carelessly, prototyping can just as easily create a murky stew of ideas lost in redundant versions, unarticulated assumptions, and competing visions. This book aims to explain what prototyping is, good reasons for prototyping, and how to effectively prototype. WHAT IS A PROTOTYPE? prototype n. 1. An original or model after which anything is copied; the pattern of anything to be engraved, or otherwise copied, cast, or the like; a primary form; exemplar; archetype [Webster’s 1913 Dictionary]. prototype n. 1. An original type, form, or instance serving as a basis or standard for later stages. 2. An original, full-scale, and usually working model of a new product or new version of an existing product. 3. An early, typical example [http://www.dictionary.com; accessed January 13, 2004]. The definition of prototype has changed little in more than 90 years. Webster’s 1913 Dictionary and today’s dictionary.com both classify a prototype in roughly the same way: as a model of a final product. Yet the new definition does make a subtle important difference. Unlike Webster’s, the definition from dictionary.com does make a slight change using the word stages-plural-illustrating the iterative nature of prototyping.
- 46. This book specifically covers prototyping software as described by Bill Verplank, who suggests that: “ ‘Prototyping’ is externalizing and making concrete a design idea for the purpose of evaluation” [Munoz 1992]. We like Verplank’s definition because prototypes are tangible software representations, which permit the software team to experience a design without needing to program the software. A prototype is any attempt to realize any aspect of software content. For example, the prototype can be a realization of interaction and navigation from one point in a product to another. A prototype can also be a hierarchical schema of an information design, divorced from both the look and feel of the final software. Other aspects of a prototype include: A Current state of the art A Requirements A Content The current state of the art is a checkpoint of what the software would be like if it was built with just the currently existing knowledge of the software- making team. Requirements can refer to business requirements, technical requirements, functional requirements, end-user requirements, or any combination thereof. Content can be any of the different content types that make the prototype: information design, interaction design, visual design, editorial content, product branding, and system performance. For the sake of brevity we refer to any human-computer interaction as software throughout this book, regardless of whether it is a product or service, whether desktop software, mobile software, website, web application/service, or other interactive digital product. AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF PROTOTYPING Software makers are not the first to wrestle with the challenges of inventing and prototyping technology. Historical perspectives help us understand the nature, challenges, and advantages of prototyping. Here we want to briefly explore three prototypers from the past: Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, and Henry Dreyfuss. Each has made remarkable contributions to design and the process of invention, and each has explored the possibilities of their inventions with prototypes. Da Vinci left behind prototypes of concepts and ideas (in the form of drawings) that would take centuries to come to fruition. Thomas Edison used exhaustive prototyping as the engine that drove his inventive ideas. And Henry Dreyfuss used prototypes to make industrial products more user-centered and ergonomically sound. These three people illustrate how a prototype serves one primary purpose: the means of moving an idea from the human imagination to a form that other humans can readily see, understand, evaluate, use, and further develop. 4 | Chapter 1: Why Prototyping?
- 47. Leonardo da Vinci: The Thinking Man’s Inventor The drawings of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) are some of the most fascinating examples of prototype usage for exploring innovation. During the late 15th century, da Vinci created detailed sketches of engineering ideas at the request of his patron, the Duke of Milan. These paper prototypes freed da Vinci from the contemporary constraints of what was possible to build. At liberty to push the limits as far as his imagination, da Vinci became one of history’s most profound and prolific inventors. An Historical Perspective of Prototyping | 5 “I have often thought that one of the industrial designer’s most valuable contributions to his client’s product is his ability to visualize. He can sit at a table and listen to executives, engineers, production and advertising men throw off suggestions and quickly incorporate them into a sketch that crystallizes their ideas–or shows their impracticability. His sketch is not, of course, a finished design, but the beginning is likely to be there.” Henry Dreyfuss, 1967 FIGURE 1.1 A drawing of an inventive idea by Leonardo da Vinci.
- 48. Da Vinci’s inventions would not be built for hundreds of years: flying machines, municipal construction, canals, buildings, and designs for advanced weapons. Da Vinci’s paper prototypes, and the models that others built from them, serve as proofs of concept well in advance of the technology that would eventually enable their development. Its in the same way use of prototypes will serve as the proof of concept that starts software development in the right direction. Thomas Alva Edison: Inventor Prototyper Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) was one of the most prolific and eminent American inventors. He explored ideas through extensive prototyping both in paper and in physical models. Of 1,368 separate and distinct patents he earned during his life- time, the most recognized are the phonograph and perfections to the electric light bulb. The bulk of Edison’s work was focused on creating mass-market products. He labored during a time of great industrial transition, with exciting developments in materials and production processes. Creating a prototype became not just as da Vinci used them as a source of innovation, but also as the means to communi- cate the manufacturing requirements: what parts were needed, what molds needed to be made, what the production costs would be, etc. These prototypes sought to improve life on a mass market level. Other American inventors in Edison’s time, such as Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922, inventor of the telephone), George Washington Carver (1864–1943, inventor of peanut agricultural sciences and food products), and John Wesley Hyatt (1837–1920, inventor of celluloid, an early thermoplastic), sought to improve daily life by reducing manual labor and introducing luxury items and entertainment to the masses. 6 | Chapter 1: Why Prototyping? FIGURE 1.2 Leonardo da Vinci.
- 49. Discovering Diverse Content Through Random Scribd Documents
- 53. The Project Gutenberg eBook of Elizabethan Drama and Its Mad Folk
- 54. This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Elizabethan Drama and Its Mad Folk Author: E. Allison Peers Release date: November 27, 2020 [eBook #63896] Most recently updated: October 18, 2024 Language: English Credits: E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Lisa Reigel, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AND ITS MAD FOLK ***
- 55. The Project Gutenberg eBook, Elizabethan Drama and Its Mad Folk, by E. Allison (Edgar Allison) Peers Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/b24857087 Transcriber’s Note: A complete list of corrections as well as other notes follows the text. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AND ITS MAD FOLK
- 56. LONDON AGENTS: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL Co. Ltd.
- 58. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA AND ITS MAD FOLK The Harness Prize Essay for 1913 BY EDGAR ALLISON PEERS, B.A. Late Scholar of Christ’s College, Cambridge. Cambridge: W. HEFFER AND SONS LTD. 1914
- 59. To My Mother
- 61. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE Preface I. Introductory 1 II. The Presentation of Madness—from the Standpoint of History 8 III. The Presentation of Madness—from the Standpoint of Literature 42 IV. Mad Folk in Tragedy and Comedy—(i) The Maniacs 60 V. Mad Folk in Tragedy and Comedy—(ii) Imbecility 118 VI. Mad Folk in Tragedy and Comedy—(iii) Melancholy 126 VII. Mad Folk in Tragedy and Comedy—(iv) Delusions, Hallucinations, and other Abnormal States 150 VIII. Mad Folk in Tragedy and Comedy—(v) The Pretenders 167 IX. Conclusion 176
- 63. PREFACE. The bulk of this essay is the result of research work along lines which, so far as the author knows, have not been previously traversed. The arrangement and the general treatment of the work are therefore original. Certain books, notably Tuke’s “History of the Insane in the British Isles,” Bucknill’s “Mad Folk of Shakespeare,” Bradley’s “Shakespearean Tragedy,” and Ward’s “English Dramatic Literature,” have been of special utility in places where reference is made to them. The critical judgments of these authors, however, have by no means always been followed. The original title of the essay was “The Mad Folk of English Comedy and Tragedy down to 1642.” It has been shortened for purposes of convenience, and the term Elizabethan extended in order to take in a few plays which belong to the next two reigns. The term is, however, generally recognised to be an elastic one, and most of the plays dealt with fall easily within it. Much of the revision of this work has been carried out under pressure of other duties. I have been greatly helped in it by the criticisms and suggestions of Professor G. Moore Smith, by the constant help of Mr. N. G. Brett James, by some useful information given me by Mr. C. Ll. Bullock, and especially by the kindness of my friend, Dr. J. Hamilton, who has read the essay through in manuscript from the point of view of the physician. Although I have not always taken up this standpoint in dealing with my subject, I have tried at all times to give it due consideration, for, as Ferdinand says in the “Duchess of Malfi,” “Physicians are like kings: they brook no contradiction.” E. A. P. Mill Hill, March, 1914.
- 65. CHAPTER I. Introductory. “Shall I tell you why? Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say every why hath a wherefore.” (Shakespeare: “Comedy of Errors.”) The jingling criticism of Dromio of Syracuse will ever recur to the essayist on an unconventional subject. Lest any therefore should claim of this essay that “in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason,” excuse shall come prologue to the theme, and its “wherefore” shall receive a moment’s merited attention. Of what utility, it may be asked, can the study of certain insane persons appearing in early modern drama be to the student of to-day? To this question let us give a double answer. The study has a distinct historical value, for from the mass of original documents which form the body of drama under consideration, we may gather much of the progress which has been made in the attitude of the country towards insanity, and hence the increasing tendency towards a humane and intelligent outlook upon disease in general. Our study is also of value from the point of view of literature—partly as shewing the varying accuracy of our dramatists and the art with which they portrayed their mad folk and introduced them into their plays, partly by selecting and exposing the chief types of the mad folk themselves, considering them on their own merits, as pieces of art of intrinsic literary value. This last will be the chief business of the present essay. We shall follow the order above indicated, regarding the presentation of madness successively from the standpoints of history and of literature. Under the latter head we shall consider several general questions before proceeding to isolate individual characters
- 66. in turn. Lastly, we shall endeavour, from the matter furnished us by these plays, to extract some general conclusions. One proviso must be made before we can embark upon our subject. What, for the purposes of this essay, is to be the criterion of madness? In ordinary life, as we know, the border-land of the rational and the irrational is but ill-defined. We cannot always tell whether mental disease is actually present in a person whom we have known all our lives, much less can we say when the pronounced eccentricity of a stranger has passed the bourn which divides it from insanity. The medical profession itself has not always been too wise where madness is concerned; and where the profession is at fault, with every detail of the case before it, how can the layman aspire to success, with only a few pages of evidence before him of a “case” propounded by another layman of three centuries before? Were we to take the point of view of the physician we should be plunged into a medical dissertation for which we are both ill-equipped and ill-inclined. But there is another, and a far more serious objection, already hinted at, to the adoption in this essay of the medical point of view. The authors themselves were not physicians; in many cases, as will be seen, they appear to have had but an imperfect technical knowledge of insanity and its treatment; their ideas were based largely on the loose and popular medical ideas of the Elizabethan age. If we are to consider this subject as a department of literature we must adopt the point of view of the dramatist, not of the practical physician. We must, for the time, definitely break with those who enquire deeply and seriously into the state of mind of every character in Shakespeare. In dealing with “King Lear,” for example, we shall make no attempt to pry behind the curtain five minutes before the opening of the play for the purpose of detecting thus early some symptoms of approaching senile decay. Nor shall we follow those who endeavour to carry the history of Shylock beyond the limits of Shakespeare’s knowledge of him, in the hope of discovering whether he was true or false to the religion of his fathers. The critic who peeps behind the scenes at such times as
- 67. these finds only the scene-shifters and the green room, where his nice offence will soon receive appropriate comments! Our best plan, then, will be habitually to consider the plays from the point of view which we take to be that of the author himself. Prejudices will be put aside, and predispositions to premature diagnoses resisted. Constance and Timon of Athens, with several personages from Marlowe’s dramas, will be regarded (with some effort) as sane, for the simple and quite adequate reason that they were so regarded by their authors. The question whether or no Hamlet was actually insane will, for the same reason, be dismissed in a few words; while the many witches who haunt Elizabethan drama, and whose prototypes afforded in nearly every case genuine examples of dementia, will be heroically disregarded, as falling without the bounds of our proposed theme. From the number of occurrences in this body of drama of such words as “mad,” “madness,” “Bedlam,” “frantic,” and the like, it might be supposed that there are more genuine mad folk than actually appear. A few words will suffice to clear up this difficulty. The term “madness” is often used in a loose, unmeaning sense,— in phrases such as “Mad wench!”, somewhat resembling the equally unmeaning slang of to-day. To insist on this point would probably provoke the charge of a lack of the sense of humour, and insistence is indeed unnecessary. Most readers of Shakespeare will recall Leontes’ transport before the supposed statue of his wife, a transport which he characterises as “madness”; Portia’s description of that “hare,” “madness the youth”; Biron’s apostrophe: “Behaviour, what wert thou Till this madman show’d thee?”[5:1] and no less Shylock’s famous description of men that “are mad if they behold a cat.”[5:2]
- 68. Those who are acquainted with “Philaster” may remember Megra’s description of “A woman’s madness, The glory of a fury,”[5:3] and everyone has at some time or other lighted upon that kind of “fine madness” which is the property of every true poet, and which Drayton, attributing it to Marlowe, declares “rightly should possess a poet’s brain.”[5:4] Nowhere in these passages are we expected to see insanity, though the last two are somewhat stronger than the others, and are typical of many places where “madness” is used for simple passion and for inspiration respectively. In a very special sense, however, madness is used for the passion of love, to such an extent that there is an actual gradation into madness itself. Loosely, and often humorously, the lover is said to be mad for the same reason as the lunatic. To quote Shakespeare once more—as he is more familiar than many of his contemporaries— “The lunatic, the lover and the poet, Are of imagination all compact.”[6:1] There is only a step between seeing “Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt,”[6:2] and seeing “more devils than vast hell can hold.”[6:3] Once cool reason has given way to “frenzy,” the Elizabethan is not always too subtle in his distinctions within that convenient term. So when Troilus informs us that he is “mad in Cressida’s love,”[6:4] when Rosalind jestingly speaks of love as deserving “a dark house and a whip,”[6:5] and when Mercutio declares that his Rosaline-tormented Romeo will “sure run mad,”[6:6] we must not altogether discard such references as idle or even conventional. For while there is a great gulf fixed between such “frenzies” as these and the madness of the
- 69. love-lorn Ophelia or even of the Gaoler’s Daughter in the “Two Noble Kinsmen,” we can only account for such a peculiar case as Memnon —in Fletcher’s “Mad Lover”—by postulating a conscious development of the idea that “love is a kind of madness.” It is possible that the difficulty of keeping to the point of view we have chosen may lead to many mistakes being made in our treatment of individual characters. But it seems better to run the risk of this than to set about this work as though it were a medical treatise, or as though the plays to be considered had been produced by a kind of evolution, and not by very human, imperfect, work-a- day playwrights. That being said, Prologue has finished: “Now, good or bad, ’tis but the chance of war.”
- 70. FOOTNOTES: [5:1] “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” v., 2, 337. [5:2] “Merchant of Venice,” iv., 1, 48. [5:3] “Philaster,” ii., 4. [5:4] Drayton, “The Battle of Agincourt.” [6:1] “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” v., 1, 7. [6:2] l. 11. [6:3] l. 9. [6:4] “Troilus and Cressida,” i., 1, 51. [6:5] “As You Like It,” iii., 2, 420. [6:6] “Romeo and Juliet,” ii., 4, 5.
- 72. CHAPTER II. The Presentation of Madness—from the Standpoint of History. “A mad world, my masters!” (Middleton.) The earliest view of madness which finds its way into this drama and persists throughout it, is based on the idea of possession by evil spirits. This conception came down from remote ages; it accounts, for example, for the madness of King Saul in the Old Testament, when “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit troubled him.”[8:1] In the Elizabethan Age, demoniacal possession was still regarded as one of the most potent causes of insanity; it was made to account not only for mental disease but for all kinds of physical deformations and imperfections, whether occurring alone, or, as is often the case, accompanying idiocy. An offshoot, as it were, from this idea, is the ascription of mental disease to the influence of witches, who were often themselves (ironically enough), persons suffering from mental disorders. So enlightened a man as Sir Thomas Browne declares more than once his belief in witches and their influence; Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” asserts that melancholy can be caused and cured by witches; the learned James, King of England, and Edward Coke, who lived at the same time, both take up the legal aspects, stating that the plea of insanity offered on behalf of witches should not be recognised at the legal tribunal. In Middleton’s “Witch” (i., 2), there is a mention of “solanum somniferum” (otherwise known as Deadly Nightshade or Atropa Belladonna) which was the chief ingredient in many witches’ recipes and produced hallucinations and other abnormal states of mind. Banquo, in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” probably refers to the witches’ influence when he enquires, directly after the first meeting with them:
- 73. “Have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner?”[9:1] A counterpart to the idea of possession by demons is found in a belief, common at this time and earlier, in the inspired utterances of the frenzied prophetess. Neither here nor with the witches was any curative treatment undertaken. For with the oracle no such treatment was thought to be necessary or even advisable, and with the witches none except death was supposed to avail. Occasionally a “witch” might be subjected, like other mad folk, to “chains” and “whips,” but the road more often taken was the short one. In simple cases of demoniacal possession the means of cure was patent: the demon must be cast out and the patient will return to his right mind. The exorcisation of the “conjuror” was commonly accompanied by pseudo-medical treatment, the nature of which will presently appear. Now the influence of the demonological conception of insanity is clearly seen in our dramas. Everyone is familiar, to go no farther than Shakespeare, with the famous exorcisation scene in “Twelfth Night,”[10:1] where the clown, disguised as “Sir Topas the curate,” comes to visit “Malvolio the lunatic,” and drives out the “hyperbolical fiend” which is supposed to vex him. Everything Malvolio does can be expressed in terms of Satan. When the wretched man speaks, it is the “fiend” speaking “hollow” within him. His disgusted exclamation when Maria urges him to “say his prayers” is construed into the fiend’s repugnance to things sacred. Fabian advises “no way (of treatment) but gentleness . . . the fiend is rough and will not be roughly used.” While Sir Toby protests that it is “not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan; hang him, foul collier.” A more complete and far more famous illustration may be found in “Lear,”[10:2] where Edgar attributes his assumed madness to possession by the various spirits which he names. Almost his first words in his disguise tell of the “foul fiend” leading him “through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and quagmire.”[11:1] He names “the foul Flibbertigibbet,” the fiend of
- 74. “mopping and mowing,”[11:2] who “gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip;”[11:3] of “the prince of darkness . . . a gentleman; Modo he’s called and Mahu”;[11:4] of “Hobbididence prince of dumbness;” of “Hoppedance” who “cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring”[11:5] and many others—culled from the flowery page of Harsnet’s “Popish Impostures.” A more modern idea of insanity is that which attributes it to natural physical causes, and this finds expression in our dramas— often in the same play—side by side with the conception just mentioned. The capriciousness of heredity, for instance, is recognised by the author of “A Fair Quarrel”: “Wise men beget fools and fools are the fathers To many wise children . . . A great scholar may beget an idiot, And from the ploughtail may come a great scholar.”[11:6] The supposed justice of the same law is illustrated by a passage in Brome’s “English Moor,” where among punishments for sin is included: “That his base offspring proves a natural idiot.” One of the most popular of the physical causes assigned by seventeenth century dramatists to madness is the worm in the brain. “Madam,” says Arcadius in Shirley’s “Coronation,” “my uncle is something craz’d; there is a worm in’s brain.”[12:1] Shirley frequently refers to this particular “cause,” and Winfield, one of the characters in “The Ball,” adds to it another superstition when he says: “He has a worm in’s brain, which some have suppos’d at some time o’ the moon doth ravish him into perfect madness.”[12:2] Superstition is responsible for many of the “causes” of madness in our drama, and among these the most prominent is probably the superstition responsible for the English word “lunatic.” The supposed
- 75. influence of the moon on insanity and of its deviations on the recurrence of maniacal periods is clearly the source of those words which Shakespeare gives to Othello after the murder of Desdemona: “It is the very error of the moon; She comes more nearer earth than she was wont And makes men mad.”[12:3] So Lollio, in “The Changeling,” tells Franciscus that “Luna” made him mad.[12:4] The “parson” who figures, too, among the mad folk in “The Pilgrim,” has to be “tied short” since “the moon’s i’ th’ full.”[12:5] That the superstition connected with the moon, however, was under high medical patronage is shewn by a reference to the “Anatomie of the Bodie of Man” by one Vicary, chief surgeon at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital (1548-1562). “Also the Brayne” (he writes) “hath this propertie that it moveth and followeth the moving of the moone; for in the waxing of the moone the brayne discendeth downwarde and vanisheth in substance of vertue; for then the Brayne shrinketh together in itselfe and is not so fully obedient to the spirit of feeling, and this is proved in men that be lunaticke or madde . . . that be moste greeved in the beginning of the newe moone and in the latter quarter of the moone. Wherefore when it happeneth that the Brayne is either too drye or too moyst, then can it not werke his kinde; then are the spirits of life melted and resolved away, and then foloweth feebleness of the wittes and of al other members of the bodie, and at the laste death.” The word “lunatic” itself, it may be noted, quickly passed into common speech, and was used without reference to its original significance. We shall find it constantly recurring throughout this study, but as there is little variety in its use, no further examples need be quoted. An interesting superstition is connected with the mandrake plant, round which, from the supposed resemblance of its strangely cleft root to the human figure, many weird notions have gathered. One of
- 76. these was that when torn from the ground, the plant would utter groans of “sad horror,” which, if heard, caused instant madness, or even death.[14:1] From the numerous references to this superstition in Elizabethan drama may be extracted two,—the first from “Romeo and Juliet” (iv., 3, 47-8), where Juliet speaks of “shrieks of mandrakes, torn out of the earth That living mortals, hearing them, run mad”; the second from a speech of Suffolk’s in “2 Henry VI.” (iii., 2, 310), where the Duke reminds the Queen that curses will not kill “as doth the mandrake’s groan.” Other causes to which, rightly or wrongly, insanity is attributed may be grouped together for convenience. In the “Emperor of the East” is an obvious reminiscence of Holy Writ where Flaccilla says of Pulcheria: “Grant heaven, your too much learning Does not conclude in madness.”[14:2] This devout wish, however, has only about as much claim to be taken seriously as Leonato’s fear that Benedick and Beatrice, married a week, would “talk themselves mad.”[15:1] Such causes as irritation, worry, jealousy and persecution are frequently mentioned as conducing to frenzy, if not actually causing it. The Abbess of the “Comedy of Errors,” reproaching Adriana for her treatment of Antipholus, sums the matter up thus: “The venom clamours of a jealous woman Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth. It seems his sleeps were hinder’d by thy railing, And thereof comes it that his head is light. Thou say’st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings: Unquiet meals make ill digestions;
- 77. Thereof the raging fire of fever bred; And what’s a fever but a fit of madness? Thou say’st his sports were hinder’d by thy brawls: Sweet recreation barr’d, what doth ensue But moody and dull melancholy . . . Have scared thy husband from the use of wits.”[15:2] We need not stay long over the numerous characters who speak of anger as leading to madness. The term “horn-mad,” however, is sufficiently interesting to be cleared up here.[15:3] It is used in two senses. Often it is no more than an emphatic way of expressing the simple adjective. In this sense it may be connected with the Scottish word “harns,” meaning “brains,” an alternative form being “horn-wood.” When Joculo, in Day’s “Law Tricks,” suggests that “the better half of the townsmen will run horn- mad,”[16:1] this is clearly the sense in which the words are to be taken. But in another sense, the source of which is evident, “horn- mad” is the word used to denote a kind of madness unknown as a technical term to the medical profession, but very common in the less elevated portions of our drama. This madness is a thing “Created Of woman’s making and her faithless vows”; the madness, in a word, of the cuckold. Falstaff seems to be punning on the two senses of the term when he says: “If I have horns to make me mad, let the proverb go with me: I’ll be horn mad.”[16:2] Dekker exhibits an especial fondness for this particular pun. Cordolente, the shopkeeper of “Match Me in London,” whose wife the King has seduced, says on being informed by that monarch that he is mad: “I am indeed horn-mad. O me! In the holiest place of the Kingdom have I caught my undoing.”[16:3] Similar passages can be found in nearly all Dekker’s plays, whether true madness is actually in question or not.
- 78. A world of meaning lies beneath such phrases as “dog-madness,” “midsummer madness,” “March mad,” “as mad as May butter.”[17:1] The first refers primarily to hydrophobia, though it is not always used in that sense; the second is accounted for by the old belief that insanity was fiercest and most prevalent in midsummer. The phrase “March mad” is connected with the saying “As mad as a March hare.” Its explanation is that during the month of March, their breeding season, hares are wilder than usual. An example of the use of the phrase might be quoted from Drayton’s (non-dramatic) work, “Nymphidia”: “Oberon . . . Grew mad as any hare When he had sought each place with care And found his queen was missing.” “May butter” is unsalted butter, preserved during May for medicinal use in healing wounds. The connexion of the phrase with madness, however, is so deep as to be no longer understood! Finally, among the causes of madness recognised in the seventeenth century must be mentioned melancholy, though we shall have to return to this on another page. The common belief appears to have been, in the words of the Doctors of the Induction to the “Taming of the Shrew,” that “Melancholy is the nurse of frenzy,”[17:2] and incipient melancholiacs are constantly adjured by their nearest and dearest to remember this fact—though their adjurations seldom have any effect. The Duchess of Malfi, indeed, hearing in her captivity a “hideous noise,” and being told: “’Tis the wild consort Of madmen, lady, whom your tyrant brother Hath placed about your lodging,” replies: “Indeed, I thank him; nothing but noise and folly Can keep me in my right wits; whereas reason
- 79. And silence make me mad.”[18:1] In the “Lover’s Melancholy,” Prince Palador is presented with a “Masque of Melancholy” (for which the author was largely indebted to Burton) in order that his diseased mind may be relieved. These two cases certainly shew a divergence from the more general opinion. The first may perhaps be attributed to the Duchess’ desire: “to make a virtue of necessity,” the second to the fact that Palador’s disease is not true melancholia, but a state of mind bordering on affectation—that melancholy affected by more than one of Shakespeare’s “humorous” characters, of whom it can be said “You may call it melancholy if you will favour the man, but by my head ’tis pride.”[18:2] We may gather next, from our plays, some of the recognised symptoms of insanity in these early times. Epicene, pretending to recognise the madness of Morose, says: “Lord, how idly he talks, and how his eyes sparkle! he looks green about the temples! do you see what blue spots he has?” Clerimont has his answer ready: “Ay, ’tis melancholy.”[19:1] But these two are over-frivolous; their diagnosis is untrustworthy; we must turn to surer ground. One supposed sign of madness was evidently the quickening of the heart and the pulse. Hamlet, in a well-known passage, ridicules his mother’s idea that the ghost which he sees is due to “ecstasy”: “Ecstasy! My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music.”[19:2] Philaster, declaring his sanity to Arethusa, says: “Take this sword And search how temperate a heart I have . . . .” and again: “. . . Am I raging now?
- 80. If I were mad, I should desire to live. Sir, feel my pulse, whether have you known A man in a more equal tune to die.” Bellario replies: “Alas, my lord, your pulse keeps madman’s time! So does your tongue.”[19:3] That these tests were inadequate is proved by a simple illustration—in the “Comedy of Errors,” Pinch the exorcist, mistakes Antipholus’ anger for madness. Luciana cries: “Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!” And a courtezan, “Mark, how he trembles in his ecstasy!”[20:1] Pinch attempts to feel the “madman’s” pulse, but in any case he knows that both man and master are possessed: “I know it by their pale and deadly looks.”[20:2] The madman was supposed not to be aware of the nature of his disease. “That proves you mad,” says the Officer in Dekker’s “Honest Whore,” by a strange piece of reasoning, “because you know it not.”[20:3] Throughout the plays occurs the same phenomenon. Even when certain of the mad folk recognise that they are afflicted with some sort of disease, they resent questioning on it. Guildenstern’s account of Hamlet is significant of a large number of cases: “Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, But with a crafty madness, keeps aloof When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state.”[20:4]
- 81. The resentment is no doubt due to a subconscious wish of the madman to hide his loss of that sense of personal identity which is used by Shakespeare as one of the criteria of madness. Constance’ proof to Pandulph of her entire sanity will be remembered: “I am not mad; this hair I tear is mine. My name is Constance; I was Geffrey’s wife; Young Arthur is my son and he is lost: I am not mad[21:1]. . .” Sebastian, in “Twelfth Night,” gives similar evidence: “This is the air; that is the glorious sun; This pearl she gave me. I do feel’t and see’t; And though ’tis wonder that enwraps me thus, Yet ’tis not madness.”[21:2] Another symptom of insanity was sleeping with open eyes. Meleander, in the “Lover’s Melancholy,” “sleeps . . . with eyes open, and that’s no good sign”[21:3] and the Duchess of Malfi is said to sleep “like a madman, with (her) eyes open.”[21:4] A general wildness of demeanour was thought to be characteristic of both the earlier and the later stages of madness. Songs and dances are often associated with it; wild laughter, “the usher to a violent extremity,” accompanied by fulminations against the world in general; bitter sarcasm, sudden touches of pathos and consequent outbursts of anger; “thundering” and “roaring,” which can only be checked by like excesses on the part of others—these are all common symptoms, together with “raving” on all kinds of subjects. This wildness, however, is not inconsistent with considerable force and pregnancy of speech, which might lead some to doubt the actual presence of insanity; and which is “a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of.”[22:1] A sense of physical pain, of being “cut to the
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