Chapter 12
12.1
● Design, prototyping and construction = Develop phase of the double diamond
● Final product emerges iteratively, aided by prototyping
● Two aspects:
○ The conceptual part = focuses on the idea of a product
○ The concrete aspect = details of the design
○ Intertwined and often impact each other
● Prototyping used to allow users to evaluation the product effectively
● Early stages = paper/cardboard, later stages becomes more polished
12.2
● Prototyping = concrete manifestation of an idea which allows designers to communicate
their ideas and users to try them out
● Limited in that a prototype will usually emphasise one set of product characteristics and
de-emphasise others
● Useful when discussing or evaluating ideas with stakeholders; communication between
team members; effective way for designers to explore design ideas
● It helps answer questions and support designers in choosing between alternatives
● The purpose of a prototype will influence the kind of prototype that is appropriate to build
● Service prototypes involved role-playing and people as an integral part of the prototype
as well as the product itself (vs. product prototypes)
● Low-fidelity prototype = simple, cheap and quick to produce (and modify) but don’t look
much like the final product or provide the same functionality
○ Important in the early stages of development (ex. conceptual design) as
prototypes used should be flexible and encourage exploration and modification
● Storyboarding = series of sketches showing how a user might progress through a task
using the product under development (example of low-fi prototyping)
○ When used in conjunction with a scenario it provides more detail and allows
stakeholders a chance to role-play with a prototype
● Sketching = Low-fi prototyping often relies on hand-drawn sketches
○ Doesn’t have to be anything more than simples boxes, stick figures and stars
● Prototyping with Index Cards
○ Used for developing a range of interactive products including websites and
smartphone apps
○ Each card represents one element of the interaction and the user can step
through the cards, pretending to perform the task while interacting with the cards
● Wizard of Oz
○ Assumes you have a software-based prototype
○ The user interacts with the software as though interacting with the product
however a human operator simulates the software’s response to the user
, ○ Prototyping AI systems also draws on this style of prototyping, where the
designer sketches the AI for themselves, and as the design matures,
implementation of the AI can take its place
● High-fidelity prototyping = looks more like the final product and usually provides more
functionality than a low-fidelity prototype
● It is common for prototypes to evolve through various stages of fidelity within the
design-evaluation-redesign cycles
● High-fidelity prototypes can be developed by modifying and integrating existing
components - both hardware and software - which are widely available through various
developer kits and open source software
● In robotics = tinkering, in software development = opportunistic system development
● Prototypes involve compromises as the intention is to produce something quickly to test
an aspect of the product (ie. paper prototypes don’t actually work)
● The Anatomy of Prototyping: Filters and Manifestations
○ Three key principles:
○ Fundamental prototyping principle
■ purpose of prototyping = creating a manifestations that filters the qualities
in which designers are interested without distorting the understanding of
the whole
○ Economic principle of prototyping
■ The best prototype is one that, in the simplest and the most efficient way,
makes the possibilities and limitations of a design idea visible and
measurable
○ Anatomy of prototypes
■ prototypes are filters that traverse a design space and are manifestations
of design ideas that concretize and externalise conceptual ideas.
○ Filtering dimensions:
■ Appearance, Data, Functionality, Interactivity, Spatial structure
● Both high- and low-fidelity prototypes can provide useful feedback during evaluation and
design iterations
● Two kinds of prototyping (trade-off in breadth of functionality versus depth)
○ Horizontal prototyping = providing a wide range of functions but with little detail
○ Vertical prototyping = providing a lot of details for only a few functions
● Another common compromise is level of robustness versus degree of changeability ie.
making a product robust may lead to it being harder to change
● Consequences of high-fidelity prototypes = users may be less prepared to critique
something that looks good enough to be the final product, fewer alternatives are
considered because the prototype works and users like it
● Two different development philosophies:
○ Evolution prototyping = a prototype evolves into the final product and is built with
these engineering principles in mind
○ Throwaway prototyping = prototypes as stepping stones towards the final design
(not subject to rigorous testing in each stage)
12.1
● Design, prototyping and construction = Develop phase of the double diamond
● Final product emerges iteratively, aided by prototyping
● Two aspects:
○ The conceptual part = focuses on the idea of a product
○ The concrete aspect = details of the design
○ Intertwined and often impact each other
● Prototyping used to allow users to evaluation the product effectively
● Early stages = paper/cardboard, later stages becomes more polished
12.2
● Prototyping = concrete manifestation of an idea which allows designers to communicate
their ideas and users to try them out
● Limited in that a prototype will usually emphasise one set of product characteristics and
de-emphasise others
● Useful when discussing or evaluating ideas with stakeholders; communication between
team members; effective way for designers to explore design ideas
● It helps answer questions and support designers in choosing between alternatives
● The purpose of a prototype will influence the kind of prototype that is appropriate to build
● Service prototypes involved role-playing and people as an integral part of the prototype
as well as the product itself (vs. product prototypes)
● Low-fidelity prototype = simple, cheap and quick to produce (and modify) but don’t look
much like the final product or provide the same functionality
○ Important in the early stages of development (ex. conceptual design) as
prototypes used should be flexible and encourage exploration and modification
● Storyboarding = series of sketches showing how a user might progress through a task
using the product under development (example of low-fi prototyping)
○ When used in conjunction with a scenario it provides more detail and allows
stakeholders a chance to role-play with a prototype
● Sketching = Low-fi prototyping often relies on hand-drawn sketches
○ Doesn’t have to be anything more than simples boxes, stick figures and stars
● Prototyping with Index Cards
○ Used for developing a range of interactive products including websites and
smartphone apps
○ Each card represents one element of the interaction and the user can step
through the cards, pretending to perform the task while interacting with the cards
● Wizard of Oz
○ Assumes you have a software-based prototype
○ The user interacts with the software as though interacting with the product
however a human operator simulates the software’s response to the user
, ○ Prototyping AI systems also draws on this style of prototyping, where the
designer sketches the AI for themselves, and as the design matures,
implementation of the AI can take its place
● High-fidelity prototyping = looks more like the final product and usually provides more
functionality than a low-fidelity prototype
● It is common for prototypes to evolve through various stages of fidelity within the
design-evaluation-redesign cycles
● High-fidelity prototypes can be developed by modifying and integrating existing
components - both hardware and software - which are widely available through various
developer kits and open source software
● In robotics = tinkering, in software development = opportunistic system development
● Prototypes involve compromises as the intention is to produce something quickly to test
an aspect of the product (ie. paper prototypes don’t actually work)
● The Anatomy of Prototyping: Filters and Manifestations
○ Three key principles:
○ Fundamental prototyping principle
■ purpose of prototyping = creating a manifestations that filters the qualities
in which designers are interested without distorting the understanding of
the whole
○ Economic principle of prototyping
■ The best prototype is one that, in the simplest and the most efficient way,
makes the possibilities and limitations of a design idea visible and
measurable
○ Anatomy of prototypes
■ prototypes are filters that traverse a design space and are manifestations
of design ideas that concretize and externalise conceptual ideas.
○ Filtering dimensions:
■ Appearance, Data, Functionality, Interactivity, Spatial structure
● Both high- and low-fidelity prototypes can provide useful feedback during evaluation and
design iterations
● Two kinds of prototyping (trade-off in breadth of functionality versus depth)
○ Horizontal prototyping = providing a wide range of functions but with little detail
○ Vertical prototyping = providing a lot of details for only a few functions
● Another common compromise is level of robustness versus degree of changeability ie.
making a product robust may lead to it being harder to change
● Consequences of high-fidelity prototypes = users may be less prepared to critique
something that looks good enough to be the final product, fewer alternatives are
considered because the prototype works and users like it
● Two different development philosophies:
○ Evolution prototyping = a prototype evolves into the final product and is built with
these engineering principles in mind
○ Throwaway prototyping = prototypes as stepping stones towards the final design
(not subject to rigorous testing in each stage)
