Photo: A woman engaging with a service prototype (via wearesnook.com)

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Take one minute to silently

Define, in your own words, what a prototype is.

What is a prototype?

Prototyping is a key design skill. At this point in your Masters program, you might believe that a prototype is a rendering of a user interface in a program like Figma. But that would be incomplete; a user’s experience is about more than just the user interface.

Usability expert Dr. David Travis says a prototype is any concrete representation of a design idea that serves the purpose of asking and answering design questions. In other words, it’s anything we can create that helps us determine whether we’re closer to our further from meeting users’ needs.

Photo: A woman engaging with a service prototype (via wearesnook.com)

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Image: Paper prototyping in action by Csaba Házi (via Dribbble)

A prototype is a communication tool. As a result, prototypes can take almost any form imaginable.

If the essential idea is compelling enough, the audience will fill in the details on their own.

Photo: Usability testing a proposed experience with a paper prototype (via mediamatic.net)

For example, if we wanted to test the safety implications of a touchscreen car media system, �we could render a semi-realistic prototype and capture the user’s response in various scenarios.

Image: A prototype on paper, not a paper prototype by Mike Rhode (via userfocus.co.uk)

Designers are often under tremendous pressure to render ideas in higher fidelity. �But this risks creating confirmation bias.

Content and image (A prototype on paper, not a paper prototype by Mike Rhode) via userfocus.co.uk

Wireframes are too specific

“Wait a minute, Andrew,” you might be saying to yourself. “Isn’t this why we make wireframes?”

Not really. A wireframe is a type of schematic, an annotated diagram used to clarify design specifications. As Dr. Travis argues, wireframes don’t work as prototypes for at least two reasons:

• They encourage too much focus on the layout of pages. In the earliest design phase we want to test navigation, workflow, terminology and functionality more than we do details of the visual design.
• They suggest we’re at the the end of the initial design phase, not the beginning. We’re not.

Paper prototyping provides a blend of rendering methods. It gives us a tool to simulate potential user experiences and tease out user needs, no coding skills required. Because it’s clearly a work in progress, it breaks us out of premature design specification and causes us to focus on user needs.

Lower fidelity work drives validated learning just as well as higher fidelity work. �It communicates that no design is sacred, users define our success, and we’re committed to learning quickly.

Image: Build, Measure, Learn (via @johncutlefish)

Content adapted from Dr. David Travis’s course User Experience: The Ultimate Guide to Usability; Icons: Wireframes by Lero Keller (one, two, three, four via NounProject.org)

GETTING THE RIGHT DESIGN

GETTING THE DESIGN RIGHT

Ultimately, shaping is about get the right design solution before getting the design right. �Early in the process, our job is to evaluate possibilities rather than polish any given solution. �We place small bets to learn through observed user behavior. Ultimately, we win bigger.