Design Thinking: Prototyping

Prototyping is the fourth stage in the Design Thinking process. It is the step that makes your ideas from the previous stage into a tangible model that can be tested for improvements. In the design process, it is extremely important to undergo rapid prototyping. This is when the designer builds multiple models cheaply and quickly to ensure they will learn from the various forms of prototyping.

According to Rapid Prototypes, the key part of the process of prototyping is the idea that it should be fast to establish a cost-effective and time-sensitive model. Not only will it save money and time, but it will also not let the designer get attached to one idea that could end up failing. Instead, it will lead to the creation of more ideas and little improvements that will eventually help the overall product. It also is essential to have multiple people on your design team, this will help aid in the discovery of possible problems that need fixing, new ideas to add to the product, and a chance to learn from various perspectives. 

Although there are many stages before prototyping, it is the best stage in which a designer can gain very useful insight into their product. According to Stage 4 in the Design Thinking Process: Prototype, you can do the most with your design at this stage because it provides designers with the opportunity to bring their ideas to life and test for practicability of the design. It also is a way to sample users with how they feel and think about the product. By making a tangible model, it can help aid the discovery of new solutions and see if your product would succeed in the design world. 

Prototyping is the most direct option to gain a better understanding of your audience’s feelings about the design you are showcasing. The results the designers gain from partaking in this step can redefine the problem they are trying to solve from earlier stages. It will also aid in their awareness of the problems because they will get a first-hand account of how the users face these issues. There are many factors that need to be overseen in order to ensure a good test of the model. One must be able to observe, record and judge their own work as well as measure the performance, behavior, actions, and reactions of the audience.  

There are also many different types of devices designers can use to get prototyping done effectively. With the up-and-coming use of the 3D printer, it is an instant way to make numerous forms of different style models before you choose a final design. Also, there are apps that, depending on what you are creating, can greatly aid in the process of rapid prototyping. For our workshop, we used the app, Marvel. It is yet again, a cheap and efficient way to guide the designer in the right path for their new and upcoming product. For our product, we wanted to make a wacky app design that will be functional yet funny for our audience to use. We first sketched out our ideas and later enhanced them with colors. During this workshop, we used the app to make our designs come together and flow like a real app. Marvel helped us, as designers, understand what needed to be changed in order to create our fully functioning app. As we showed our different apps to students in the class, it was much easier to tell what tweaks needed to be made. 

Overall, the stage of prototyping is the part of the design process where the designer can have fun putting their ideas into models and gain insights and perspectives that will only help them to create the best product.