Paper prototypes. You will receive a breif introduction to paper prototyping and design testing in class. If you would like to know more about the process you should review the following resources.
Snyder Consulting had an early foot in the door on paper prototyping for web design. You will find their Paper Prototyping page useful, as well as articles like Seven Tricks that Web Users Don't Know. THe downloads section has a nice set of lists and forms to help you conduct user-task analysis.
The Nielsen Norman Group (as in Jakob Nielsen) has plenty to say about paper prototyping. Here are some stills from their video on the topic.
Although this AlistAPart article focuses more on the wire frame paper prototype, it is useful as as second supportive perspective on paper prototypes. Since you are all capable graphic designers, and because we are not building databases or heavy data driven sties, it will be useful for your to do some paper analysis of your comps.
A few cool examples:
Designing the interface for Excel 2007 here (including paper prototypes)
