Prototyping — A Way to Think Together
Year: 2009
Editor: Chakrabarti, A.
Author: Bergström,Mattias; Ericson,Åsa
Section: Enabling Technologies and Tools
Page(s): 450-457
Abstract
The descriptive study presented in this paper is based on the empirical data generated by observing a global student design team. Their prototyping process are described and discussed to feed input to the facilitation of team based innovation. The emerging of a shared design vision as early as possible is vital for the subsequent design activities, in particular for innovation projects. Every day items, body language and simple rough prototypes are used by the student team to communicate their ideas, to generate feedback on the ideas and to put forward new ideas. The study indicates that the process of doing rough prototypes enables designers to make their implicit understandings visible in such cases when the development starts from scratch, e.g.,innovations. Thus, prototyping, i.e., the use of rough prototypes and body language etc, assist designers to collaborate and share experiences in early phases when no agreed upon design vision exists
Keywords: Prototyping, Innovation, Engineering Design, Design Thinking, Early Phases