Interface design: 5 good reasons not to forget paper

Interface design: 5 good reasons not to forget paper

Here are some arguments for those who still doubt the usefulness of paper interface design in terms of productivity.

Paper interface design is…

Fast

Nothing is quicker than scribbling an idea or an interface on the back of a piece of paper lying around. Just avoid doing it on the back of a client’s invoice. Sure, the execution is less beautiful, less precise, but at this stage, that’s a good thing. If you focus on aesthetics instead of content organization and functionality, you risk losing sight of the prototype’s objective.

Flexible

Erasing, crossing out, cutting, pasting, folding, and adding post-its. These simple actions allow you to create and recreate your interfaces without breaking anything and with great freedom. For some, using paper is even too flexible, preventing them from considering screen resolution constraints (scale) or technical specifics. Experience and collaborative work can easily address these issues.

Cheap

Here’s an average estimate based on prices from a major office supply distributor. To be operational, you need:

  • An eraser: $1.50
  • HB pencils (pack of 10): $0.99
  • Dual-hole sharpener: $3.99
  • Recovered paper sheets: Free

Total of $6.48 + taxes.

This is about 200 times cheaper than a computer with a trial version of Figma.

For projects requiring a more precise approach, one can opt for printable templates or nice notebooks. Some use colored pencils or markers to highlight hyperlinks.

Accessible and collaborative

While mastering the interface and design standards of software can be challenging, drawing a reasonably straight line and a stick figure is within most people’s reach. In addition to being understandable, it creates a certain comfort in production (everyone can participate) that promotes collaboration. It’s not always easy to gather around the same screen. It’s much simpler in front of a board or a paper sheet stuck to the wall.

If your colleague quickly sketches an adaptation of the navigation to show that a “Do nothing” approach would perfectly suit the project, it will take about 1 minute 7 seconds. And if the client wants to explain what they mean by “adding small auto-scrolling blocks in the middle,” nothing beats a drawing to understand without headaches.

Fun

Let’s be clear: it’s fun. And for some reason, it always works better when it’s fun to work. The collaborative aspect even allows for shared fun, which is an even better reason. In our world of screens, it probably feels good to get back to something tangible.

Some tips for interface design

  • Don’t Make It Too Pretty: One of the objectives of a paper prototype is to remain flexible and thus easily modifiable. If you become too attached to the aesthetics (which is always a challenge), you might hesitate to make changes that could improve usefulness and usability. The advice is: clear enough to be understood, but not so pretty that you become attached to it.
  • Avoid Dummy Text as Much as Possible: Lorem Ipsum can easily become a false friend. If possible, use the final text. Otherwise, use the most plausible content available. This allows you to accurately project the data structure and anticipate constraints.
  • Keep Pixels in Mind: Paper has many advantages. However, it does not have the advantage of being interactive like the screens for which our prototypes are intended. An obvious fact, but one that should be kept in mind to avoid falling into a print mindset.

Is paper interface design still useful?

There are contexts where this question arises, mainly in terms of productivity. If the project’s allocated hours are tight, we tend to skip this step. However, it often saves hours in the long run. But simply put, it is less useful to do paper prototyping for:

  • Projects that are already well-mastered by you and/or your team. For example, at Kryzalid, we are specialists in websites for real estate brokers.
  • Projects with relatively little content/functionality, such as certain pre-launch pages.

So, don’t hesitate to pick up your pencil to quickly sketch an interface design. All team members can agree on an idea before taking it further!