Master's Thesis of René Milzarek

This thesis establishes, on the basis of a comprehensive literature review, a fundamental definition for the term of a fidelity-level in the context of UI prototypes and the mockup-driven development process. Two main fidelity-levels were identified and common usability artifacts were classified accordingly. Furthermore the design of prototypes with multi-fidelity levels was defined as the systematic process of increasing the fidelity-level by adding new properties. The mockup-driven development approach, as defined in literature, focuses on the transition from a high-fidelity level to the final product and does not reflect the previously introduced process of continuously increasing the fidelity-level. Another mockup-driven development approach - namely the Cascading Tree Sheets - proved oneself to be more or less irrelevant von the area of prototype development.

A requirements elicitation at the industry partner Siemens identified the improvement of the collaboration and the facilitation of a systematic reuse of UI components as main requirements for a user-centered development process.

On the basis of these requirements, such a process was designed and following the previously introduced term definitions labeled as prototype-driven development process.

The part of the component management and creation of the defined process was prototypically implemented in the form of a component catalog. The whole concept was evaluated in the course of a usability walkthrough und a subsequently conducted questionnaire with employees of the industry partner. The suggested process contributed to the improvement of the collaboration and the reuse of existing components. However an added value of multiple fidelity-level support could not be identified.