ApplBuilder: An Object-Oriented Application Generator Supporting Rapid Prototyping

This paper describes an object-oriented application generator, APPLBUILDER, currently being developed in the Mjølner BETA programming environment. APPLBUILDER supports several rapid prototyping styles as well as final development of BETA applications. User interface objects such as dialogs, menus, and windows are designed using direct manipulation graphical editors. Actions behind buttons and menu items are programmed as ''scripts'' in textual editors activated from within a graphical editor. The editors reflect changes in the code directly in an underlying Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) thus saving compilation time. Moreover, generated applications are modularized so that editing, for instance the script for a button, only requires re-compilation of the script itself. An advantage of APPLBUILDER compared to other user-interface design tools such as HyperCard is that APPLBUILDER's scripts are embedded in a general purpose programming language making it possible to avoid calls to external routines written in another language. In addition, APPLBUILDER's ability to work with ASTs instead of textual code skeletons supports reverse engineering

Cooperative Prototyping: Users and Designers in Mutual Activity

In most development projects, descriptions and prototypes are developed by system designers on their own, utilizing users as suppliers of information on the use domain. In contrast, we are proposing a cooperative prototyping approach where users are involved actively and creatively in design and evaluation of early prototypes. This paper illustrates the approach by describing the design of computer support for casework in a technical department of a Danish municipality. Prototyping is viewed as an on-going learning process, and we analyze situations where openings for learning occur in the prototyping activity. The situations seem to fall into four categories: 1) Situations where the future work situation with a new computer application is simulated to some extent to investigate the future work activity. 2) Situations where the prototype is manipulated and used as a basis for idea exploration. 3) Situations focusing on the designers' learning about the users' work in practice. 4) Situations where the prototyping tool or the design session as such becomes the focus. Lessons learned from the analysis of these situations are discussed. In particular we discuss a tension between the need for careful preparation of prototyping sessions and the need to establish conditions for user and designer creativity. Our conclusion is that users and designers should prepare to learn from breakdowns and focus shifts in cooperative prototyping sessions rather than they should try to avoid them

Cooperative Prototyping Experiments: - Users and Designers Envision a Dental Case Record System

This paper describes experiments with a design technique that we denote cooperative prototyping. The experiments consider design of a patient case record system for municipal dental clinics in which we used HyperCard$^{TM}$, an off-the-shelf programming enviroment for the Macintosh. In the experiments we tried to achieve a fluent work-like evaluation of prototypes where users envisioned future work with a computer tool, at the same time as we made on-line modifications of prototypes in co-operation with the users when breakdown occur in their work-like evaluation. The experiments showed that it was possible to make a number of direct manipulation changes of prototypes in cooperation with the users, in interplay with their fluent work-like evaluation of these. However, brekdowns occurred in the prototyping process when we reached the limits of the direct manipulation support for modification. From these ecperiences we discuss problems in the process, requirements for design tools, and issues involved in getting going with cooperative prototyping with active user involvement