A Comparative Study of Milestones for Featuring GUI Prototyping Tools
This survey provides insights for HCI researchers and developers on the progression of prototyping tools, but it is incremental as it compiles existing data without introducing new methods.
The paper analyzes the evolution of GUI prototyping tools by reviewing academic literature since 1988 and 118 commercial tools, comparing features and identifying gaps for future research.
Prototyping is one of the core activities of User-Centered Design (UCD) processes and an integral component of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. For many years, prototyping was synonym of paper-based mockups and only more recently we can say that dedicated tools for supporting prototyping activities really reach the market. In this paper, we propose to analyze the evolution of prototyping tools for supporting the development process of interactive systems. For that, this paper presents a review of the literature. We analyze the tools proposed by academic community as a proof of concepts and/or support to research activities. Moreover, we also analyze prototyping tools that are available in the market. We report our observation in terms of features that appear over time and constitute milestones for understating the evolution of concerns related to the development and use of prototyping tools. This survey covers publications published since 1988 in some of the main HCI conferences and 118 commercial tools available on the web. The results enable a brief comparison of characteristics present in both academic and commercial tools, how they have evolved, and what are the gaps that can provide insights for future research and development.