One of the great things about the Xbox360 is that it can be upgraded. Since it’s launch in late 2005 there have been numerous upgrades to the dashboard. (The dashboard is the interface for the console where you download games, play movies, manage your gamerTag, etc.)

Before anything is changed or added to the Xbox dashboard we build prototypes to use in user testing. That’s where I come in. I have created a Flash based version of the dashboard that has all the functionality of the Xbox - maybe even a little bit more. Most importantly the prototype is all XML driven.

Obviously this work has to be kept behind closed doors so I can’t produce an example. Instead I’ll give a brief description of the functionality:

• History: if you have used the 360 dashboard before then you probably know that it remembers where you are from screen to screen. This is like building a Flash website that remembers where you have been from page-to-page and reproduces the scene as you left it.
• No mouse: don’t forget that the 360 doesn’t work with a mouse. You use the controller to move around on the screen. All input is captured with a Key listener. This is where the 360 prototype differs the most from a typical Flash application. Typically when the user interacts with the interface that changes a state in the data. Here it’s just the reverse. The user interacts directly with the state data and then when that changes the user interface is updated.
• Dynamic navigation: each page has it’s own XML file. The XML is structured much in the same way that an XHTML site using CSS-P would be. Each element on the page is a node in the XML and that node contains information about where it is placed on the page and where the navigation can go.
• Rapter360 stands for RAPid protoTypER260. As long as no new elements are being tested I can create a new demo, or demos, in a matter of 4-6 hours. All without opening the Flash authoring tool.