The importance of bringing a prototype

This is a lesson I have been given in a couple of other classes here in graduate school. But its value was made strikingly clear in last week’s class. It is not a judgment, or value assessment, as the presenters were in very different stages of developing their idea. However, we were able to have a much more fruitful discussion with the presenter who was able to show us something tangible to bounce our ideas off of.
Our first presenter had a Powerpoint presentation-but this is not a prototype! After taking us through some of the facts and figures in his presentation, he unveiled his product. He showed us how it worked, illuminated some of the variables of the product, and then opened the floor to our ideas and comments. The discussion began and the input from the audience was nonstop. The presenters were ready with notepads, and took down lots and lots of notes. By seeing the actual product, at any resolution (this resolution was quite high), we were able to imagine ourselves interacting with it and responding with conviction. We were able to see clear aspects of the product and respond to them. At least from my point of view, it was a valuable give and take for both the designers and for us.
Then came the next presenter. She was at the beginning of her process, and therefore had very little to show us. She had some materials, but they were just there to be materials, not necessarily related to her presentation. She presented her background, the background of the city she was working in and then a general idea of what her goals were for her project. Then she asked us for ideas. Silence. We had nothing to go on, no tangible thing in our hands or on the screen, just a fuzzy idea of a direction to go in. We sat for awhile, and then tried to pull some comments out of the air. We got somewhere, but nowhere far.
Again, my criticism should not be taken as a judgment on the second presenter, or the goals which she hoped to attain. But in the presentation, she gave us nowhere to go. You will not get valuable feedback from an audience unless they have something to react to. Bringing a prototype, even of something analogous to her idea, or another solution to the issue would have allowed us to concentrate on the variables of the solution, and offer helpful feedback. It is not a matter of showing that you did work on the idea. A prototype lets your audience have something to hold onto and concentrate on and get specific with.
I first was introduced to this idea at the design school at Stanford. It is a strategy used at IDEO (the principles at this innovative design consultancy helped to start the design school). They explain it better than I-”The authors present three objectives related to prototyping that facilitate behavioral change within organizations. These objectives include building to think – creating tangible expressions of ideas enables organizational thinking to develop concretely through action; learning faster by failing early (and often) – making things tangible allows small, low-impact failures to occur early, resulting in faster organizational learning; giving permission to explore new behaviors – the presence of a prototype encourages new behaviors, relieving individuals of the responsibility to consciously change what they do.” You can read the whole article that the excerpt comes from here.
Mediaconnectincommunities says always bring a prototype!

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