Hello Nick,

To put it simply: you won't get fully realistic reactions to features
that aren't fully implemented! But you should still get a lot of
useful feedback on your (preliminary) designs.

So I would argue that you may not be phrasing the question in the most
productive way. Rather than focusing on the possible drawbacks of
"only" testing with wireframes I'd suggest thinking about the possible
benefits to the project over not testing at all: will or won't it be
beneficial for your project to get early user feedback on the
information architecture, page flow, page layout, high level
interaction design etc.? If so, just do it!

I test and prototype wireframes all the time and wouldn't want to
complete a project without it. There are of course benefits to testing
with a more fully finished product. But we rarely have that luxury and
anyway usually won't be able to do much with the results by the time
the product reaches this stage.


HTH,
Ulrik

On 11/6/07, Nick Gassman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> We're developing some new pages, and there are some time pressures on
> the project. We might only be able to test with wireframes, before
> pushing the full html development live. We'd normally test html
> mockups before going live.
>
> Does anyone have evidence of times when users have reacted with
> significant differences between wireframe and html versions of pages
> in testing?
>
> thanks
>
> *    Nick Gassman - Usability and Standards Manager - http://ba.com *
>
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-- 
Ulrik H. Gade
Marcura FZE
PO Box 54614
Dubai, UAE

The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step

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