«I like the smell of failure in the morning. It means success in the afternoon». We begin a new phase of the LAPASSION project in Uruguay. After the previous weeks of immersion in the subject, definition of problems and generation of ideas, it is time to check our assumptions.
Hypotheses and prototypes
The prototype is the consequence of what we want to test. Therefore, it is about checking our product and knowing what really works. Shoud it be improved or discarded? The prototype has a function of evaluation and learning, so we should not "fall in love" with it. It's just an affair that has to help us get to the final product.
Make sure you build the right thing, before building it rightly
The prototype is based on drawings, models and objects that aren't perfectly constructed but they take us to the final solution. So, the prototype gets information from users and our own environment to refine the solutions. Depending on the type of problems, it is likely that we need to raise different types of prototypes.
Prototyping levels
According to IDEO, an American innovation consultancy founded by one of the creators of Design Thinking, three areas could be established to work on the functionality of our product or service.
PHYSICAL LEVEL: A prototype of this level is related to the appearance and morphological function of the product. Through economic and simple materials, a replica is built and tested.
EXPERIENCE LEVEL: In this section, we focus on the UX (user experience). It is about developing a simplified system of user behavior. In this behavior, different phases may exist and, therefore, several models have to be prototyped. In fact, it is currently very common to develop apps, online stores and other digital business models that require the analysis of two profiles: the user and the client. Navigation can work, but perhaps the moment of purchase requires other specificities. By testing, you can foresee some mistakes and save yourself large investments of money.
ENVIRONMENT LEVEL: It consists in a test in a real environment. The social and cultural codes of each area often determine the success or failure of a product or service. Before investing amounts of money, a lot of hours of work and effort, the most effective task is to prototype and anticipate possible critical situations according to the culture.
Tools to prototype
There are several tools to create models of our products or services and some of them are listed in the following section.
Recommended if we work with a service
Storyboard: is a visual script to organize ideas and understand the operation or process of our product or service. This graphic representation allows reordering the steps that our proposal follows.
Customer experience map: In a kind of graph, the stages, interactions and elements that our user reaches from one point to another of our service are displayed
Recommended if we work with a product
Models or prototypes 3D: First, we can draw the parts that make up our product and what is its appearance. After that, a dimensional model can be developed by a physical model or a 3D model. So, the final result is processed more clearly. In a more advanced phase, we can develop a functional prototype to test actions like sounds, lights, movements, etc.
Recommended if we work with a web or an application
Landing Pages: A landing page is generated for people who download the app or access the website. In this way, the interest and the number of interactions and other behavioral data related to their activity on that page are measured. For its development, we can use platforms such as: Wix, Webnode, Mobirise, Adobe Experience or Sketch.
In any case, the design phases should never understand as a linear process. In some way, we should always go back, rectify initial approaches, review points of research that had been left in the background or discard some possible solutions. The solution has no sense without the problem.
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