Design, Development, & Production
PrototypingPrototypes are a critical part of the iterative design process. Both hardware and software prototypes are used to validate and improve upon all of the work and design decisions that were made leading up to the product development stage, and often serve as the first chance that users get to interact with your product. Prototypes exist in a vast spectrum of fidelity ranging from paper sketches to low-volume production hardware. Deliverables from prototype testing are usually in the form of design recommendations for future iterations or generations of the product.
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What is a Prototype?
A prototype is an early representation of a product or interface, and often the first tangible result of the design cycle. Prototypes are generally characterized by unfinished or work-in-progress aesthetics and limited, if any, functionality. They are useful proofs-of-concept and a helpful tool in aiding designers in refining and improving their product designs.
Prototypes are often categorized by their level of fidelity, and thus methods for prototyping span a wide range of techniques. Generally, lower-fidelity prototypes are used in earlier stages of the product development phase, and fidelity tends to improve as the product is better defined and moving toward finalization.
Prototypes are often categorized by their level of fidelity, and thus methods for prototyping span a wide range of techniques. Generally, lower-fidelity prototypes are used in earlier stages of the product development phase, and fidelity tends to improve as the product is better defined and moving toward finalization.
Prototypes can be created to highlight, or to suppress, different aspects of the product in question. It is therefore important that prototypes are designed with specific goals in mind. An overly complicated prototype, though close to the final product, may prove to be too much stimulation for users in earlier design stages, and thus may not answer the research questions being investigated using the prototype. For example, low-fidelity prototypes might focus on the physical size of the product or the general layout of an interface, whereas higher-fidelity prototypes might have working buttons and moveable parts or will be available as a beta test for real-world use. |
Why use Prototyping?
Prototyping is an excellent tool for evaluating design because it is (typically) low cost, easy and quick to create, and useful for eliciting user feedback. Some kinds of prototypes, typically those lower in fidelity, can be developed by virtually anyone and therefore are supremely useful within the iterative design process. Depending on the fidelity of the prototype, it can be used to test lots of ideas in parallel (in support of early ideation) or to test a small number of well-developed ideas in the use case scenario (as a means of verification).
When to Use Prototyping?
This method is typically used later in the design cycle, but can be implemented in all stages of the actual development of the product, employing varying degrees of fidelity. Prototypes are helpful with both hardware and software products.
How to Prototype?
LOW FIDELITY: Used primarily for early testing of ideas/concepts. Low in time and monetary cost, and allows for maximum creativity and rapid iterating.
- Sketching (hardware and software): Usually the earliest kind of prototype. Hand drawn sketches are used quickly mock up lots of different ideas without being grounded by physical or technical constraints. Sketches are used primarily as a form of ideation and visualization, and not necessarily good for testing purposes. They can be repetitive and are not easily modifiable or particularly interactive. However, the universality of sketching makes it a staple in the design process.
- Paper prototype (software): Based on sketches and using many sheets of paper or sticky notes, paper prototypes are perhaps the earliest form of interface design. This method can be used by virtually anyone with few and inexpensive supplies. Paper prototypes are also helpful for user testing, particularly for high-level issues like navigation or organization. When used as a test method, the researcher acts as the “computer” and adjusts the interface (by shuffling or changing pages) based on user “input.”
- Form prototype (hardware): Early hardware prototypes are helpful primarily for validating the form, and sometimes the weight, of a product. In order to evaluate these, random items are often taped or glued together in a kind of amalgamation that loosely resembles the desired form. These are helpful for beginning to explore the use of the product in real world space, and can help illuminate some of the benefits and costs associated with the physical form. As such, several different form prototypes are often compared against one another.
- Interface Design Programs (software): There are now a great deal of tools that designers and engineers can use to test a software interface. These tools are extremely vast in terms of the fidelity and interactivity they support. Some such tools can be used for translating rough sketches into more realistic wireframes, whereas others require more specific/defined interfaces and can be used in simulated scenarios for testing. These methods are excellent for building out an interface beyond the concept stage, and can allow for parallel testing of multiple ideas. Although the collateral used with these tools are not used in the final product, they are no less helpful in supporting some of the research that is necessary earlier in the development process.
- Screenshots/storyboarding (software): This method is useful primarily for testing the appearance of an interface, as the screenshots are often made as close to the final product as possible. Storyboarding is also helpful to ensure that the organization and navigation of the interface meets user expectations by simulating basic interactivity.
- 3D printing (hardware): A relatively new form of prototyping, 3D printing is a relatively quick yet expensive way to evaluate the form and weight of a product, often using the same 3D modeling data as the final version. It requires highly specific knowledge of 3D modeling applications, but results in a high-fidelity, tangible product that can be used in real-world or simulated scenarios. Due to the monetary costs of 3D printing, this method is generally used later in the development process, and only for a small number of different designs if any.
- Functional prototype (hardware): These prototypes are typically low-volume production versions of a product. They are often used to verify both that the product works as designed and that the production process will result in a high-quality product. Such prototypes are often the last before the product is finalized for production, and are thus very expensive to produce and not particularly easy to make changes to.
References & Resources:
- Das, A., & Stuerzlinger, W. (2007). A Cognitive Simulation Model for Novice Text Entry on Cell Phone Keypads. In Proceedings of the European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics (ECCE 2007), 141-147.
- Elkoutbi, M., Khriss, I., & Keller, R. K. (1999). Generating user interface prototypes from scenarios. In Requirements Engineering, 1999. Proceedings. IEEE International Symposium on (pp. 150-158). IEEE.
- Gutenkunst, K. R., & Cruise, R. J. (1987). Human factors simulation to support software design. Proceedings of the Human Factors Society Annual Meeting 1987, 1416-1420.
- Landay, J. A., & Myers, B. A. (1994). Interactive sketching for the early stages of interface design. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM Press. 1-17.
- Martin, B. & Hanington, B. M. (2012). Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions. Rockport Publishers.