This tool sets out eight techniques we can use to prototype a new product, service or process.
"Developing a prototype early is the number one goal for our designers. We don't trust it until we can see it and feel it."
These techniques are designed for a collaborative workshop setting or a shared online environment. They prototype four different types of touchpoint: Physical stuff, Information, People and Online. We pick one or more that are suitable and make sure our workshop has all the right materials and our test website is well designed and recruited.
Once prototypes have been produced, we evaluate each to the following format in order to select the most promising.
1. What idea did we prototype?
Write in here a brief description or title of our idea. Perhaps we have given the idea a ‘catchy title’ in Idea Frame in which case we copy it here.
2. What are we going to change?
Each prototyping session will result in a host of findings and learnings. What unexpected things happened? What features and elements were missing from our innovation? Record the changes that we recommend here.
3. What remains the same?
What were the most successful elements of our prototype? We make a decision about which elements to keep and record them here.
If many elements of our prototype need to change maybe we have to stop. Perhaps in the light of this new understanding, other ideas that we discounted earlier might look more attractive. Reinvention is an important principle of iterative prototyping so we decide to revisit later on if we feel the prototype has merit.
Use when designing a Prototyping Jam and in concert with Sketch Templates and Idea Frame for early definition of new products and services.
Also use Prototyping Techniques to test out weak or uncertain elements of a new Service Blueprint.