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What are the three types of prototypes?
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What are the three types of prototypes?Prototyping is a crucial part of the design process and a practice used in almost all innovation disciplines. From industrial designers, architects, engineers to designers, they build prototypes to test their designs and solutions before investing in mass production or further development.
The goal of prototyping is to build a tangible model of the solutions to problems already defined during the concept/idea stage. Instead of going through the entire design process based on an assumed solution and an unproven hypothesis.
On many occasions, when we are faced with building a prototype of our solution, we do not know exactly what we can create, what form we can give it, we may even have too many hypotheses that we want to discover in testing with this prototype.That is why it is important to make a reflection prior to construction in order to makea good decision about what to build. But where do we start?
There are different types of prototypes depending on their objective. Because depending on what we want to test and what dialogue we want with our user, we must create a typology or another artifact or prototype.
Types of prototypes
Prototypes to think about:This type of prototype helps us when our idea of a solution is very abstract. By building something more tangible it helps us to think. And in this way, it becomes one of the best ways to reason about the solution and continue defining our idea. This prototype is a first approximation to what our final product will be. We must try to get as close as possible to our idea and how to understand its morphology and what its development implies. In this case we can resort to different prototyping tools, such as a cardboard model or 3D printing.
Prototypes to empathize:The empathizing prototypes aim to understand our users or customers without testing a concrete solution. To use this prototype we need to be in first person with users, with whom we want to discuss certain relevant issues for the solution we are trying to develop and learn how they perceive them. To build this type of prototype we can also use different techniques, such as a Customer Journey Map to test the user experience.
Prototypes to show:The prototypes to show help us to visualize the idea in a clear and direct way, so that it does not leave room for questions and that it is self-explanatory. It is important to develop it as concisely as possible so that our user fully understands what we have in mind. There is no single way to build this type of prototype, but we must think about the best method to do it, either through role play, with a storyboard through drawings or through a set of wireframes.
Once the type of prototype to be built is clear, the technique that best suits the learning objectives will be chosen. At C&H Letterpress one of our goals is not to stay on the post it, but to build to learn and make our clients an active participant in the creation of any solution. Remember: the cheapest way to learn is to build your idea so you can talk to your user about what's on your mind; The more tangible and "touchable" you make what you have in your head, the better feedback you will have from the person in front of you.
April 25 2023|Emilia Piedra Donoso.