05b Elements of hifi prototypes

App Prototyping Studio

Mick McQuaid

mcq@utexas.edu

University of Texas at Austin

23 Sep 2026

Week FIVE

But first … A short story

The setting

Story takes place in the eighties

Toyota was eating everyone’s lunch

Ford had a plan

Let’s visit Toyota!

Toyota embraced the visit

Ford executives saw everything

Aside: Ford executive offended by insolent elevator operator

End of tour: Any questions?

Yeah, show us the secrets!

Toyota: we showed you everything

Ford execs couldn’t accept that

Moral of the story

People sometimes don’t see what’s right in front of them

Why am I telling you this?

I have a skeptical student

One student in this class in a previous semester came to me and said that I am giving inadequate feedback. “Tell us how to improve!” he said. But I insisted I am telling you everything. He responded that telling you to correct misspellings is trivial. I thought to myself that misspellings are a sign of sloppiness, a sign of being too much in a hurry. Misspellings are, of course, the bane of old people. Is that because we’re crusty? I don’t think so. I think that spelling Candace four different ways tells me you don’t like to proofread your work. The fact that you don’t like to proofread your work tells me you don’t have a good workflow. The fact that you don’t have a good workflow tells me that you need to be told basic steps, including minor details like misspellings. And now we’re back at the beginning.

One of my favorite sayings:

Two people look and one person sees. That person will win.