What Is Successful Prototyping? Insights From Novice Designers’ Self-Evaluation Of Prototyping Success

Camilla Arndt Hansen*, Nuno Miguel Martins Pacheco, Ali Gürcan Özkil, Markus Zimmermann

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

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    Abstract

    Prototyping is essential for fuzzy front-end product development. The prototyping process answers questions about critical assumptions and supports design decisions, but it is often unstructured and context-dependent. Previously, we showed how to guide novice designers in early development stages with prototyping milestones. Here, we studied the prototyping success perceived by novice design teams. This was done in two steps: (1) teams were asked to assign each prototype to a milestone, a specific purpose, a fidelity level, and a human-centered design lens, and then evaluate the success using a predefined set of criteria. (2) Teams were interviewed about the success of the prototyping process, this time using self-chosen criteria. Results related to (1) show that teams perceived prototyping activities with respect to desirability and problem validation significantly less successful than prototyping activities towards feasibility and solution validation. Results related to (2) show that teams mostly chose success criteria related to how well prototypes supported communication, decision making, learning, and tangibility. This insight may be used to give priorities to further improvement of methods and guidance in these areas.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationProceedings of the Design Society
    Volume1
    PublisherCambridge University Press
    Publication date2021
    Pages3431 - 3440
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2021
    Event23rd International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED21) - Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
    Duration: 16 Aug 202120 Aug 2021

    Conference

    Conference23rd International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED21)
    LocationChalmers University of Technology
    Country/TerritorySweden
    CityGothenburg
    Period16/08/202120/08/2021

    Bibliographical note

    This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.

    Keywords

    • Prototyping
    • Design process
    • New product development
    • Evaluation
    • Education

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