3 ways to look at prototyping: The design thinking, lean startup and UX design perspectives
Nowadays, prototyping is a common design tool to test ideas or processes and it is included in many approaches. Prototyping can be done in various ways and for different purposes. So, let’s have a look on it from the perspectives of design thinking, lean startup and user experience design.
First, we will have a look into the design thinking perspective. As you may know, design thinking consists of three stages being inspiration, ideation and implementation. Sometimes, these phases have different names, if you’re looking for more information, have a look into this article.
Prototyping can be categorized into the second phase of design thinking being ideation. Often, the term rapid prototyping is used, because one goal is to make mistakes as fast as possible. This way, new directions for improvement can be explored and the more a product is tested and refined, the lower the costs and the possibility of negative surprises close to launching it (Olsen, 2015). To sum up, in design thinking, prototyping is used to
Visualize an idea
Test an idea thoroughly
Uncover strengths and weaknesses of an idea (Brown, 2009)
Explore directions for improvement
Minimize negative surprises
However, it does not end with this. In the third phase, the implementation, iteration is an important keyword. So, when the product is on the market, it still needs to be refined and all three phases are repeated to continually improve the product.
All in all, prototyping is an important tool in design thinking, but it is not key to the concept of design thinking itself. These are more principles like iteration, collaboration and learning.
Second, prototyping is also important to the lean startup approach by Eric Ries. Within this take, there are three parts to successfully create a business with the help of constant innovation being vision, steer and accelerate that are all again structured into 4 parts each.
Prototyping can be categorized into the sub-phase experiment (vision) as well as test (steer). However, prototyping is most relevant to the concept of the minimum viable product (MVP). With an MVP you build a very simplistic version of your product fulfilling just the main user need to test your hypothesis in an experiment. No fancy add-ons or other features. Again, as within design thinking, the goal is to minimize time and cost, but here also for
Testing the value hypothesis
Gathering valuable feedback
Gathering actionable metrics
Gaining validated learning
These benefits help in creating a successful business. Ries also makes use of iteration to refine a business and prototyping is part of the iterative cycle named build-measure-learn feedback loop. Basically, the loop is about building a feature, test it and learn if it added to the product or not all based on the previously mentioned hypothesis and metrics.
To conclude, prototyping is again described as a valuable tool if used correctly. However, again, it is not central to the concept of the lean startup.
Third, user experience design also includes prototyping. UX design is all about creating a pleasurable experience with an interactive system for the user. To achieve that multiple tools are used like personas, scenarios, site/flow maps, wireframes, use cases and of course, prototyping. However, the process starts with research on the target audience trying to understand the user’s problems and needs. When this is given, first prototypes can be sketched and developed further. Next, the evaluation can be done to improve the product in iterative cycles.
Again, prototyping can be sorted into the second and third stage of the whole process when it comes to modeling ideas on how to solve user’s problems and fulfill their needs. Prototyping can help figuring out
How the system should be organized
How the system should behave
The visual appearance including language, style and other attributes
With regard to the third stage being evaluation, e.g. user testing can help to uncover flaws in current prototypes and thus enhance the experience of a user through iteration of that process.
To conclude, prototyping is also a central tool in UX design. However, there are superior concepts like iteration and human centered design that make it so valuable.
Finally, it can be concluded that prototyping is an important tool in each of the three approaches and is used similarly, sometimes in different stages of a process. To know when and how to make use of it one must set his goals accordingly. Further, iteration is key to making prototyping truly valuable.
In which context are you making use of prototyping?
Brown, T. (2009). Change By Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. New York: HarperBusiness.
Olsen, N. V. (2015). Design Thinking and food innovation. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 41 (2), 182-187.
Ries, E. (2011). The lean startup: How today's entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses. New York: Crown Business.