Prototypes
Importance of prototypes and methods
The design process as we know it relies heavily on iterations that arise as the idea progresses. In order to get from an abstract idea to a final marketable product, prototypes act as a tool for designers to communicate the rationales of the design, as well as to to frame, refine, and discover possibilities in a design space. In the paper Lim et al. mention that this view differs significantly from current approaches in software engineering contexts where engineers use prototypes to identify and satisfy requirements. Moreover, one has to acknowledge that this approach has limitations, since a design process is fluid and needs to be adapted constantly. To quote our guest lecturer Jean-Baptiste Labrune: “To prototype is to manifest our thoughts into a physical object, that doesn’t necessarily has to be the final product”. Hence, it helps us examine the qualities of our ideas, without being too focused on the final product.
The realization that prototypes are mostly to discover problems or for exploring new ideas of our design idea has struck me the most. The incompleteness of the prototype helps to filter certain qualities and decide on how it should manifest. As Lim et al. say in their paper:
”In other words, the most efficient prototype is the most incomplete one that still filters the qualities the designer wants to examine and explore.”
Filter Dimensions
- Appearance: form, color, texture, size, weight, shape, haptic, sound
- Data: size, hierarchy, organization
- Functionality: user needs
- Interactivity: feedback behavior, information behavior, input / output behavior
- Spatial Structure: interface, two- or three-dimensional, intangible or tangible
Manifestation Dimension
- Material: refers to the medium used to form the prototype
- Resolution: the level of detail in a prototype
- Scope: range of what is covered to be manifested
These are always used in combination and are to some extend dependent of one another. I found this aspect quite interesting in the paper, and I want to be more aware on which aspects of the different dimensions I focus, in order to gain some insights to my own design practices and expand them.
Sources:
Youn-Kyung Lim, Erik Stolterman, & Josh Tenenberg. — The anatomy of prototypes: Prototypes as filters, prototypes as manifestations of design ideas. In ACM Trans. Comput.Hum.Interact. 15(2). 1–27., ( 2008)
