Other prototyping tools
For students we give some suggestions for tools that are free of charge for private use.
Rapid prototyping tools
We use Balsamiq https://balsamiq.com
Students might like Figma. For Axure there is a free of charge alternative for students http://www.axure.com/edu
...or Marvel, which is a free web and app prototyping tool. From 2022, students started to use Justinmind.
Adobe offers the Adobe XD (Experience Design) for prototyping and wireframing.
MockFlow, an online wireframing and prototyping tool. Offers a free "Basic"-subscription.
UI Goodies is a collection of resources (tools icons, fake data etc.) for prototyping.
Free trial versions: Proto.io and Moqups
However, "The future is not about your ability to use Figma; it is about your judgment and your ability to make things happen." (Jakob Nielsen, 2025, https://www.uxtigers.com/post/ux-roundup-20250804) Thus, below the list continues with some other kinds of support for prototyping.
Paper prototypes for mobiles are nicely drawn with this aid:
POP "POP helps you to transform your pen + paper ideas into a real working prototype."
UI Tiles "Wireframes & Flowcharts Kit"
Sketching and wireframing templates. Site maps by GlooMaps, diagrammes by Draw.io.
Sketching for better mobile experiences
Wizard of Oz in this scheme of things.
Videoprototyping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAWg5cG-ljw
MoveMe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9q-CdFhB7k
MasQuest http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kGVnbtGHYY
Sketch-a-Move http://vimeo.com/5125096
The Real Dropbox http://vimeo.com/73668269
Phonebloks http://youtu.be/oDAw7vW7H0c
(note: these are just inspiration and examples, you might want to do your videos completely different)
Focus Group
Focus Groups 101 by Therese Fessenden published by NN/g July 31, 2022.
Alaqra, A.S., and Pettersson, J.S. (2024) How to Facilitate Interaction in Remote Focus Groups: a Practical Guide. Human Systems Engineering and Design (IHSED 2024), Vol. 158, 187–199. https://doi.org/10.54941/ahfe1005542
Demonstrate Thinking Aloud by Showing Users a Video
"Show a 1-minute demo video to your test participants to teach them how to think aloud in a usability study and give you more useful information."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/thinking-aloud-demo-video/
Regardless of which prototyping tool / method you use, it is good to think through how to get several people to participate in your evaluations, e.g. usability tests, of the prototype. Here is a tip from the Nielsen Norman Group: How and Why to Recruit Backup Participants (aka “Floaters”) in User Research
Latin Square: Balancing priming effects when comparing alternatives
Three UIs are to be compared, and you would like to see how one and the same person performs. You soon realise that the order in which the test participants is presented may affect how TP performs and perceives. A, B, C vs. B, C, A, etc. Having several TPs will make it possible to balance-out ordering effects. Note, however, that even if BCA puts B first instead of A, we still have B potentially influencing performance/experience of C. Thus, BAC is another order to consider. Still, C is last, so... Frankfurt univ for applied sciences helps us tabulate alternatives parsimoniously, that is, https://hci-studies.org/balanced-latin-square/ and does so parsimoniously by not using all alternatives but finding an efficient way of re-ordering (ordering 4 alternatives can be done in four ways, while ordering only 3 alternatives takes six ways). For mixing to conditions, see Lewis & Sauro (2020) Latin and Greco-Latin Experimental Designs for UX Research.
However, the best results one gets by using different participants for each alternative when comparing competing products or UI designs. But the groups should be rather similar and, yes, rather large.
Remote control / Sharing computer screen
Pettersson, J.S., Olsson, G., Andersson, H. (2022) Usability Testing of Interactive Systems Conducted by University Students During a Pandemic. Proceedings of the 2022 AIS SIGED International Conference on Information Systems Education and Research. Article 10.
Our students (and researchers at KAU) should use Zoom.
But there are many more...
TeamViewer - the All-In-One Software for Remote Support and Online Meetings.
ESM - Experience Sampling Method by smartphones
We have from previous experiments an Android app and a mobile server to run data collection in the field during several weeks from a large number of test participants. This can be adapted to new thesis works and other experiments
Open publications within interaction design
See Interaction Design Foundation where a lot of reading is for free and the annual fee gives access to all courses.
Best of all are NN/g Norman Nielsen Group's newsletter and article database.
For instance, when you found out Why Personas Fail, you can see a video on how to Bringing Personas to Agile or read up on how to Segment Analytics Data Using Personas. And there are many articles on doing usability evaluations as well as results from NN/g's high-quality usability evaluations of most features of webs and apps.
Good thoughts on pilot testing (general also for questionnaires, interviews etc.):
Malmqvist, J., Hellberg, K., Möllås, G., Rose, R., & Shevlin, M. (2019). Conducting the Pilot Study: A Neglected Part of the Research Process? Methodological Findings Supporting the Importance of Piloting in Qualitative Research Studies. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919878341