What are Prototypes For? (Design Course 5.3)

There are three main purposes we build prototypes. To answer questions, to communicate and to serve as milestones in the design process. So let me just take those in turn. First of all, to answer questions, there are usually two main questions that you're trying to answer in design. The first question is a question about the solution. It's

basically will it work? And the second is a question about the need and that is really will users like it. uh is the need real and will users like it? And in a commercial setting, those questions are basically the solution or technology risk and the market or the user risk. They address those two kinds of risks.

So you're trying to answer the question, will it work? And you're trying to answer the question, will they like it? So just to give you a a few examples of that. So if we go back to the bike seat example, this prototype which I considered a proof of concept prototype answered the basic question of will it

work? Does the concept as articulated or as envisioned actually deliver on the need. Another kind of will it work question is the one that I addressed with these prototypes which is basically the question of which of these different saddle shapes is the most comfortable. And so prototypes are often used to answer those kinds of questions as well

which are fundamentally solution questions questions about the form of the solution. The other kind of question though is the will they buy it question or will they like it question and that was the question that we addressed with this alpha prototype which I made 10. I gave them out to a bunch of friends. I asked

them to try it and to report back and basically I looked for who gave it back, who never tried it, who refused to give it back as an indicator of did they really like it? Did it address their their need? There's a model in marketing called the ideal point model which posits that