End-user perceptions of formal and informal representations of web sites.

Web site designers have expressed concerns that formal, cleaned-up representations of early ideas cause end-users to focus on inappropriate details. It is believed that the high-fidelity of formal representations cause end-users to believe a design is more complete and therefore not amenable to high-level changes and suggestions. In this paper we present an experiment comparing end-user perceptions of formal and informal electronic representations of web site designs. We found that end-users do in fact believe formal representations are finished and unchanging, but that this does not seem to influence the level of detail in their suggestions. However, it appears that informal designs presented in an electronic medium raises user expectations such that lower-level suggestions about the visual aspects were made.