Overview of Prototyping Stage

Emaan Job title

The Prototyping Stage follows the Ideation Stage in the process. Before we get into the details of this stage, you must be curious about what ‘prototype’ and ‘prototyping’ mean. Allow us to explain. According to the Design Thinking Guidebook, prototypes are physical representations of ideas or concepts, and prototyping is the act of creating those objects.

The type of prototyping that we’re looking to engage in can be described as rapid. The goal of rapid prototyping is to build something rough and unrefined so that your idea can come to life as quickly and cheaply as possible. The intention is that, instead of trying to create something perfect on the first try, a messy first draft can lead to an excellent second or third draft sooner.

A wide variety of tools can help with rapid prototyping. Storyboarding, making a model, acting things out, providing flash feedback and applying a concept tool are all ways that prototyping happens. The following pages tell you how to utilize each of these tools.

Overall, the Prototyping Stage is important because it fosters shared understanding among your team. It also makes space for feedback, which is critical to improving your concept. Shared understanding and feedback space can, in turn, accelerate progress by helping you to get rid of ideas that wouldn’t work down the line.

Experiences from the field

Caro Job title

Elisa Job title

Victoria Job title

Khawla Job title

Q1
I think it’s difficult also to live with the fact that you’re just creating a prototype and just allowing yourself to not be so perfectionist or not so detail-oriented when you’re prototyping.

Q1
I see a lot of suggestion, and I see a lot of idea sharing, but they’re not really building collaboratively as part of the work. And, I think that’s what ideation means. And, that’s what prototyping is: working on something together instead of just throwing your ideas out there and see what’s going to get picked and what’s not. And, I feel like that’s what we’ve been saying about having this extractive practises where we just kind of pick on people’s brains and, then, deciding arbitrarily what’s going to be included and what’s not. And, I think that goes against the nature of this process, like you were saying earlier.

Q1
A reflection relevant for either the Ideation Stage or the Prototyping Stage: “I think the biggest challenge, at least for me, for ideation and prototyping, is to have the patience and just take it slow. Just assume that you’re not going to come up with an innovative solution from one week to another, that you’re going to need time and that you’re going to need to first think of all crappy solutions and commonplace solutions so that, then, you can start thinking of something different.”

Q1
A reflection relevant for either the Ideation Stage or the Prototyping Stage: “I think we often go to the ‘okay, here’s define your problem and then empathy and then you ideate and then you prototype and then you test and then you iterate,’ and then when you say you iterate, we never really follow up. But, I think that feedback, like continuous feedback, you know, like just taking the time every certain period of time – I don’t know if it’s three months, six months, one year, I don’t know – but we need to continue going back to that feedback process where you are going to intentionally refine your version of a solution because we are also living in a moving environment and things are happening so fast. So, we need to continually go back to check in and validate, like Elisa says, with end users.”

Q1
“So, what we will learn from this process, it’s something CIVICUS hasn’t learned yet, being able to check again because the world changes. We need constant check-ins. ‘Does this resourcing model make sense?’ ‘Does this network model make sense?’ And, then, you just adapt. […] It helps to tweak here and there.”

Q1
A reflection relevant for either the Ideation Stage or the Prototyping Stage: “Tech, of course, is an access… It’s been a thing, and now, we’re working on a digital strategy, figuring out what, because some people say the Miro is hard. And, it took a while during Caro’s workshop in December for people to know how to use Miro. But, then, you kind of get it, right? It’s not that bad. In terms of how much bandwidth that takes? No idea. For people who do not have a laptop, definitely, it’s a barrier.”

Tools for Prototyping

IWG Team Job title

Collecting feedback

Storyboard (p. 97-98)
Make a model (p. 99)
Act it out (p. 100)
Flash feedback (p. 101)
Concept tool (p. 102-103)

Best practices

Pang Job title

Philipp Job title

Deepta Job title

Fred Job title

Bistra Job title

Jonathan Job title

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