Understanding the prototyping strategies of experienced designers

Hilton, Ethan; Linsey, Julie; Goodman, Joseph

doi:10.1109/fie.2015.7344060

Cited by 9 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Prototypes serve as vehicles for designers to communicate their thoughts to others, but the nature and level of refinement of a prototype often depends on the stage of a project (Atman et al 2007;Christie et al 2012;Menold et al 2017). Prototypes used in the early stages of a design process might include conceptual sketches and crude mockups, while prototypes used during later stages might consist of more refined models with virtually indistinguishable properties from the production part (Crismond and Adams 2012;Hilton et al 2015).…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prototyping for context: exploring stakeholder feedback based on prototype type, stakeholder group and question type

et al. 2019

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Engineering designers frequently use prototypes to gather input from stakeholders. Design guidelines recommend the use of quick and simple prototypes early and often in a design process. However, the type and quality of a prototype can influence how stakeholders perceive a new design concept and can, therefore, impact their responses. Additionally, different levels of experience, expertise, and preparedness for providing input to designers may lead stakeholders from different geographical or cultural settings to provide different responses, making the format of a prototype even more influential. Although design practitioners are known to intentionally align their prototyping approaches with the specific design question to be answered, it is unclear the extent to which prototyping approaches should vary based on the stakeholder, context, and setting of a design project. To investigate how the format and quality of prototypes influence stakeholders' responses, we conducted a field study with various medical professionals in Ghana. We presented prototypes for a medical device in different formats to stakeholders and collected responses to the design through semi-structured interviews. Our findings indicate that professional expertise, prototype format, and question type influenced the types of responses that stakeholders provided. These findings suggest that designers seeking input from stakeholders on new concepts should consider context-specific prototyping strategies, especially when designing at distance and across cultures.

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Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prototyping for context: exploring stakeholder feedback based on prototype type, stakeholder group and question type

et al. 2019

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“…They often did not use prototypes strategically in ways design experts do, resulting in the underrealization of many benefits prototyping can provide as well as the potentially limited retention of the benefits they did experience (Christie et al, 2012; Crismond & Adams, 2012; Hilton et al, 2015; Kelley, 2007; Kelley & Littman, 2006; Schrage, 1999; Viswanathan, Atilola, Goodman, et al, 2014; Webber et al, 2016). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Expert designers also make use of prototypes iteratively during this process of concept development, and use multiple and varied prototypes during all phases of product design (Crismond & Adams, 2012; Hilton, Linsey, & Goodman, 2015) to simplify complexity and achieve “small wins” at the component level (Gerber, 2009; Hilton et al, 2015). Working with prototypes at the component level and the ability to switch between component- and system-level thinking is an essential aspect of successful design practiced by experts (Gerber, 2009; Hilton et al, 2015; Viswanathan, Atilola, Goodman, & Linsey, 2014). A number of factors related to prototyping influence the design outcome, including the development of a structured approach for when and how to use prototypes, time spent on prototyping, and the complexity of the prototypes developed (Atman et al, 2007; B.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Novice designers' use of prototypes in engineering design

et al. 2017

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Prototypes are essential tools in product design processes, but are often underutilized by novice designers. To help novice designers use prototypes more effectively, we must first determine how they currently use prototypes. In this paper, we describe how novice designers conceptualized prototypes and reported using them throughout a design project, and compare reported prototyping use to prototyping best practices. We found that some of the reported prototyping practices by novice designers, such as using inexpensive prototypes early and using prototypes to define user requirements, occurred infrequently and lacked intentionality. Participants’ initial descriptions of prototypes were less sophisticated than how they later described using them and only upon prompted reflection did participants recognize more specific benefits of using prototypes.

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“…Camburn et al (2015Camburn et al ( , 2017), and some of them propose to elicit information from past experiences, e.g. by interviewing expert designers (Hilton et al, 2015). Besides Fidelity, many other parameters exist that must be taken into account.…”

Section: Fidelity In Prototyping Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unveiling the Multiple and Complex Faces of Fidelity

Fiorineschi¹,

Rotini²

2019

Proc. Int. Conf. Eng. Des.

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Fidelity is one of the most important parameters to consider when dealing with prototypes, which affect the related costs and performances. Current literature contributions often rely on generic definitions of Fidelity based on the concept of closeness. However, the review performed in this paper revealed that Fidelity is a more complex concept, which considers (at least) eight main dimensions, mutually interrelated, and potentially characterized by many other potential sub-dimensions. The identified set has been applied to an industrial case study were a real engineering prototype has been assessed in terms of Fidelity. In particular, the case study application shows how the different dimensions can be interrelated each other. Furthermore, some important research hints have been highlighted in this paper, where the identified set of Fidelity dimensions paves the way for the related future activities.

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Understanding the prototyping strategies of experienced designers

Cited by 9 publications

References 16 publications

Prototyping for context: exploring stakeholder feedback based on prototype type, stakeholder group and question type

Prototyping for context: exploring stakeholder feedback based on prototype type, stakeholder group and question type

Novice designers' use of prototypes in engineering design

Unveiling the Multiple and Complex Faces of Fidelity

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