Prototyping
Why?
Develop, evaluate or communicate a concept or design.
How?
Start by determining one, or a few, conceptual, design or technical challenges you wish to tackle in the upcoming prototyping cycle. Determine which kind of prototype is suitable to evaluate the outcome (low-fidelity or high fidelity); for example: paper prototype, digital prototype, or video prototype. Create and evaluate the prototype.
Ingrediënts
- A mind-set that promotes 'fail fast, fail often'.
- A purposeful making attitude and prototyping skills.
- The ability to 'kill your darlings' if the feedback is negative.
- Prototyping materials or tools (paper, video, prototyping languages or toolsets).
In practice
Sometimes it is a bit fuzzy when sketching ends and prototyping starts. Sketching focuses on exploration and prototyping focuses on design challenges and evaluating your outcome.
- Universal Methods of Design has a few pages on prototyping chapter 58 (parallel prototyping) p122 and chapter 66 Prototyping p138 also the chapter 71 on Role-play (p148-149) is relevant for this technique.
- A classic article about prototyping is 'What do Prototypes Prototype' by Charles Houde & Stephany Hill, which can be found in chapter 16 of the Handbook of Human Computer Interaction (p367-381)
- There is a prototyping card set, created by the Hasso Platner Institute http://www.amazon.de/dp/3000506683
- The art of prototyping is well treated in Bill Buxtons Sketching the User Experience (2007)