The “Starfire” video prototype project: a case history

Developing anew working computer system can now cost hundreds of millions of dollars, all expended at great risk. Company managers who must take responsibility for making development decisions are loath to do so without being able to see and understand the system they will be “buying.” When Sunsoft launched the Starfire project to develop a next-generation interface, we turned to video prototyping, in the form of a short 35 mm film delivered in video. Not only were we thus able to show in mature form many key specifics of our new interface design, but we were able to communicate a strong sense of the resulting overall user experience. This paper describes observations and guidelines we developed during the early stages of the fihn, and what our experiences were in applying them.