How Much Design Simulation Is Enough?

Design Simulation Levels and Costs

Levels of Simulation

Design simulation works within our Building Requirements Consensus™ Methodology and Approach works for both business process and software application requirements. We look at a software application simulation here.

1. Walk through textual description of interactions, e.g., “the user does …” followed by “the system does …”
2. Add static graphics to steps, e.g., diagrams, wireframes, mockups, photos
3. Add related artifacts, e.g., pertinent sections of regulations, examples, sample data, applicable nonfunctional requirements
4. Add rough drawn static screens
5. Add realistic looking static screens with accurate fonts, colors, positioning, etc.
6. Add some working widgets to screen mockups, i.e., only for the user activities being described
7. Add high fidelity, fully working screen mockups that look like the application to be delivered

As we move down this list of levels, the simulation becomes more lifelike. More details are added. Often overlooked dynamic interactions are described more clearly.

Cost of Levels

Cost increases as we increase level of detail in the design simulation. It takes significantly more time, thus cost, to simulate a high fidelity, fully working screen than to describe interactions in text. Cost increases each time we move down a level.

How can we decide if the cost is worth the benefit?

Easier for Reviewers to Understand?

We suggest that a good criterion for determining the right level of detail and cost is to ask “Does it become easier for reviewers to understand?” at each level. Proceed to the next level as long as the answer remains “Yes.” Use the last "Yes" answered level as soon as the answer becomes “No.”

It is perfectly fine to have different levels of simulation for various interactions in a design simulation. For example, a textual description of printing a report will communicate clearly most of the time while steps that change a complex business process while adding new business rules could benefit from a level 6 or 7 simulation.

Judgment and audience reaction plays an important part of setting the right level for specific parts of the design simulation. Sometimes we have used a higher level when we suspected that there were unspoken and unexamined differing assumptions.

Making a simulation more lifelike often leads to a very interesting result as this "Aha" experience demonstrates.

How Does this Work?

Unlike plain text that is more open to interpretation, a simulation behaves in a more specified way. The more detailed the level used, the more specific the way.

Discussion starts when a simulation does not behave the way someone expects. That person will make a comment, someone else responds and the discussion is off.

The end result of the discussion can be a more effective solution that would not have been discovered without its discovery enabled by the simulation itself. This is a very satisfying outcome.

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