When it comes down to prototyping (or any other desing artifacts) people are often accustomed to taking a stand on fidelity as an absolute that applies to the whole prototype or document. On the two extreme opposites it’s either a very rough prototype (such as a paper model or sketch) or on the other end it’s a highly functional and detailed prototype (such as working code with proper visual styling and relationships). However, to think of fidelity in a more granular fashion opens up some doors. Say on the same interface representation or prototype, some areas can be left less defined and some become more detailed. This gives the designer more flexibility to choose where to spend his design attention on. No longer is the designer forced to detail out a particular area to the fidelity which the document or prototype proposes. Instead, some areas are detailed and some less. Just thinking that our design documents and prototyping tools could support this granular level of fidelity a bit better, as opposed to dictating it to us.
Indeed. Our prototypes have users the same way our final product does. Prototypes are for stakeholders: prototypes help advance the project. So, the question is "what do these stakeholders need to see in order to advance the project? do they need pixel-perfect idea of what the look and feel will be? Do they need an idea of the breadth of functionality, or the depth of a particular feature?"
Understanding which aspect of the final product is worth prototyping will determine if investment in fidelity should be in visual design, demonstration of functionality, or even re-use of technical code.
I should have posted this as well, a presentation I give that outlines this idea in more depth. http://markup.thekraemers.com/downloads/
Thanks for the link. I'll have a look.