What is Prototyping?

What is Prototyping?

Prototyping is a process for building models of potential solutions, refining them through repeated testing, and preparing them for eventual production or implementation. Prototyping as a process has probably always existed since humans began building tools to improve how they performed tasks. In essence, it’s a process of continually improving and adapting a tool or application to its environment. Prototyping coevolved with the scientific and industrial revolutions. It wasn’t until the 1960s and 70s, however, that we started to see prototyping more clearly described and defined as a specific process with steps, stages, and methods. It was also critically embedded in design and design thinking models.

Prototyping is embedded in design thinking. Now, prototyping as a fundamental part of the design thinking process, has spread to a wide variety of applications. The design process I prefer to use follows the six steps and stages in the graphic below. I will take more time in a later article to explain the design thinking process, but for now here are the six steps in brief.

Design: During the design phase, it is most important to spend time identifying the problem, understanding who are the clients and stakeholders, and scoping out the project. I like to use a design brief to summarize and communicate the work here and eventually establish criteria for success.

Futuring: The futuring process is one of background research, environmental scanning, and any SWOT (or similar) analysis. It is important to identify the forces at play in the current environment and at some point in the (not too) distant future and articulate the implications for your organization, the larger context, and the various stakeholders.

Divergence: Divergence is about creating choices. It is also about building on ideas over multiple sessions or iterations. The result is early concepts of potential solutions that can be further refined over time.

Convergence: The convergence process is one of narrowing down choices to those ideas best suited to action and results. Often, it is helpful to develop and refine key planning assumptions and test ideas to discover what “wows” so that tougher, later choices become easier.

Prototyping: Prototyping is a process for building models of potential solutions, refining them through repeated testing, and preparing them for eventual production or implementation. I often follow six steps in the process.

1. visualize possible solutions from the best choices

2. use stories bring ideas to life

3. determine what elements or functions the prototypes will test

4. build models, develop experiments, and get feedback from stakeholders

5. refine the prototypes

6. determine what works and plan to launch

Implementation: Here in the last stage of the design framework, we plan to make the ideas real. Decisions are required about the timeline, budget, impacts, and feedback mechanisms.

The four orders of prototyping. In one of the seminal writings on design thinking the 1992 article Wicked Problems in Design Thinking, Richard Buchanan put three significant conceptual stakes in the ground. First, he postulated the design thinking was a new and emerging liberal art. Second, he framed the design process as a way to solve some of the world's most difficult and wicked problems. Third, he explored how design thinking is applied across a large number of problems and how extensively design effects contemporary life. He summarized four orders for design thinking and therefore four possible realms for prototyping.

1st order: 
symbolic and visual communication. Examples here include graphic design works like typography, publications, illustration, photography, video, and computer graphics and animation. This order focuses on communicating ideas and information.

2nd order: 
materials and tangible objects. Examples here include everyday products, clothing, tools, machines, and anything we use in our 3D world. Design here can go between the virtual and physical and extends to include psychological, social, and cultural experiences related to the objects.

3rd order: 
activities, services, and simple systems. Examples here include services, user experiences, human machine system interfaces, simple organizational processes – anything where one or more individuals are experiencing interactive interaction with an intentional and pre-designed system.

4th order: 
complex systems to include cultures, environments, and organizations. Examples here include architecture and urban planning, complex engineered systems, and social systems and media. As Buchanan writes, this order is “more and more concerned with exploring the role of design in sustaining, developing, and integrating human beings into broader ecological and cultural environments.”

Most of the focus of my design and prototyping work deals with the 3rd and 4th order problems. In next week’s post, I will give you a concrete example of a fun technique I use to help strategy teams generate their own processes for generation and ideation.