DEFINING HOW PROTOTYPING PRACTICES IMPACT DESIGN OUTCOMES
“While the quantity group was busily churning out piles of work and learning from their mistakes the quality group had sat theorising about perfection”. (Bayles and Orland Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils of Artmaking 2001 pp. 54-59)
Iteration enables designers to integrate feedback into their designs (Plattner 2013). However, this may have a few restrictions. With just a single idea on the table, designers may take feedback and utilise it to focus on enhancing design without thinking about different options (Dow 2011). Creating various alternatives and getting input on them in parallel urges designers to identify more diverse solutions, lessens fixation, discourages bias interest in one idea and provides innovators to be more genuine and critical of their own and others’ opinions (Plattner et al 2010).
Iterative deliberate practice prompted better outcomes, while a few people reverberate with this story, others bring up that production plans regularly discourage iteration in favour of realization (Bunnell 2004). Prototypes elicit feedback, regardless of whether it’s from the physical world, through simulations, or from associates and potential end-users. Feedback frequently outlines subsequent actions around the current solution; it gives a guide on how to enhance designs (Bayles and Orland 2001). However, it does not unequivocally animate exploration (Plattner et al 2010). Iteration enables individuals to find unknown variables and their interrelationships. This mindset thought of as “design as discovery ” (Bayles and Orland 2001) is especially imperative while addressing hard issues (Dow 2011). Regularly, attempting solutions helps to uncover the right problems to comprehend and solve. Iterative prototyping starts a discussion with the space of design possibilities and outcomes (Plattner 2013).
Utilising standard advertisement design and information investigation, we convey a new point of view to inquiries concerning human innovativeness, inspiration, and collaboration (Cousins 2018). Our future experiments will look at how beginners’ progress to specialists, how reflective systems influence obsession, how value-centred methodologies reflect stakeholder points of view, and how the elements of feedback influence customer relations. Design brilliance goes past figuring out how to sketch and model and or prototype(Cousins 2018). It is specialty expertise as well as a state of mind. By what method can the community tackle the most incentive from these practices? With a more profound comprehension of why prototyping hones matter, maybe new pearls of insight rise (Brown and Wyatt 2010). Take part in discussion with the design space. Create prototypes that analyse huge unknowns. Find issues in addition to solutions. Centre on translating and coordinating feedback. Keep various conceivable outcomes in play to the extent that this would be possible (Plattner 2013).
SUMMARY OF DIGITAL ARTEFACT
Back in July my partner and I announced that we’d start working on ways to make it easier to grow a sense of equality and respect between gamers in the gaming community, especially regarding females. Our mission was to explore ways to present ways to help stigma issues within the gaming community and to build a YouTube channel around the idea of LETS’S PLAYS and GAMEPLAYS with a linking twitter. We wanted to test our hypothesis; that it was possible to design an approach to structure content that was based around the user(s) and could potentially scale across this sense of community.
Since then, we have been hard at work undertaking a “discovery” and started to build an alpha prototype to demonstrate how this idea might work. In this quick time frame, our intention was not to have a working digital artifact but to show, just what happens in the beta stage and to create a prototype that tested our theory. To explore our theory, we looked at a range of shared experiences that people had with gaming and the types of information and platforms they needed. This included needs around, helping users to learn about games, interactive media community’s, female’s empathy with other gamer girls, users to identify themselves, evolve interests in games, or general topics of interest. After determining the needs of discovery, we then focused the prototype in two particular ways, starting a YouTube and Twitter.
After 2 weeks of user research and 4 weeks of designing and developing a prototype, we devised a plan which has done well in the concept of usability testing so far. 6 weeks and onwards since we started this work, has been a significant milestone for us. Since we had the chance to display our findings and design work to our end users across the public platforms, “Youtube and Twitter“. Feedback from users was supportive and positive. I thought I would share with you a summary of our work so far.
DISCOVERIES FROM USER FEEDBACK
“Design as discovery.” (Bayles and Orland Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils of Artmaking 2001 pp. 54-59)
Receiving feedback from my end users throughout prototype testing could have been ineffective if I did not put the new information into practice in my next iteration stages of prototyping (Liedtka 2018). I needed to develop a method with my partner that we could actively combine what I had discovered from feedback into our process, and consciously create new iterations of our solutions as we moved forward, we found the concepts below;
We discovered that our videos were more accessible for social connection. As there was a social component to let’s Play videos, as individuals share these videos with others and frequently watch and discuss them when they were together. Subsequently, they watch our doings on YouTube and therefore they felt within the loop with other gamers. Individuals felt a feeling of entertainment within our videos. The most widely recognised reason we found that people watched our videos, was because they were entertaining to them. The entertainment value was not just the game itself but rather the person, who has made the videos (us). Individuals felt pulled in to the charisma of myself and my partner and felt as though we had turned into their friend. They additionally became more acquainted with our identities or personalities and anticipated the exciting things that we would do in our next dumb video or videos. User feedback below;
PROTOTYPING MINSET AND ITERATION
“Iterate rapidly. Explore broadly. Gather feedback from multiple sources. Do not conflate ego with object.” (Steven Dow How Prototyping Practices Affect Design Results, Stanford University, pp.54)
This quote was the symbol of my working as, after the prototyping stages I had conducted and recorded within my previous blog (PROTOTYPING OF IDEAS – BLOG), I received a lot of feedback from end users through my blog and it changed the way in which I saw my digital artifact and functions now (Plattner et al 2010). Gathering user feedback enabled me to create a new and improved form of iteration within my ideas. Which helped me to maximise my learning from tests. Below are 2 ways I mentally considered user feedback as an innovator (Plattner 2013).
Being Neutral When Presenting Your Ideas; When I showed the prototypes of my videos and twitter to my end users, I attempted to be as objective as I could be (Schrage 1999). I mentally stressed both the positive and negative parts of my solution and refrained from endeavoring to offer my thought. I recollect that prototyping and testing are tied in with discovering approaches to enhance ideas, and excessively offering my design can be averse to that objective. Be that as it may, when my end users voice had negative input about my prototype, my outlook was to refrain from endeavoring to defend it. Preferably, I needed to prove to them further to discover what precisely was not right with my proposed solution (Brown and Wyatt 2010). So, I could go back and enhance my ideas. I also avoided becoming too attached to my design idea, and I needed to dependably be prepared to dismantle, change, or even relinquish my project when the need arises. Remembering, that the iteration stage resembles a practice, not the genuine ” show “; as I am not being sliced to pieces in the commercial centre, truth be told, any careful corrections I could make that originate from negative feedback extraordinarily aided my odds of accomplishment.
Adjusting While Testing; When I conducted tests on my prototypes which you can see in my (PROTOTYPING OF IDEAS – BLOG), I endeavored to receive a flexible mindset (Schrage 1999). For example, when I understood that specific parts of my prototype were drawing attention far from the central components of the design idea, I thought to remove it or change them, with the end goal to take the concentration back to the critical elements of my design. What’s more, on the off chance that I believed that my arranged capacity for the testing session does not function admirably, I didn’t hesitate to go astray from it and improvise amid the testing sessions with the end goal to get the best feedback from my end users (Plattner et al 2010).
What I discovered within the positive feedback from my end users, was that my project mapped the broader of the design concept and that the research from the genuine need and issue faced by my users, was being comprehended (Kummitha 2018). Likewise, through the thinking and making process, as an innovator I could pass on my vision of community which was the methodology of the design, to create knowledge (Brown and Wyatt 2010). As my design naturally made knowledge of community, femininity and enjoyment, which reflected what we had made through our videos (Liedtka 2018). As an innovator making and thinking were alternating all the time due to user feedback, as feedback like the above images demonstrates the iteration of prototyping on ideas and design (Plattner et al 2010). Therefore, the making and the thinking process turned out to be extremely interrelated, opening up a chance to express knowledge through written, reflective text as well as designed outlined results and multimedia creation too (Dow 2011).
IMPACTS OF FEEDBACK FROM PROTOTYPING
“Multiple alternatives help refine a design.” (d-school – Hasso Plattner Institue of Design, Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE 2010, ‘Design Stages’ by Hasso Plattner).
The technique for “I Like, I Wish and What If” gave a structure in which I could gather feedback from my end users. In straightforward phrasing, the “I Like, I Wish and What If” technique welcomes end users to give open feedback by thinking of three sorts of expressions (Plattner 2013). Within the concept of the “I Like…” expression, the user is urged to pass on the aspects that he or she preferred about the prototype. This gave me positive input about my prototype (Dow 2011). Within the “I Wish…” expressions, users incited to share thoughts of how my prototypes could be changed or enhanced to address a few problem areas or issues (Liedtka 2018). This is a road to gather negative input and valuable feedback (Dow 2011). Finally, in the “What If…” expressions, users can express new recommendations that may not have an immediate connection to the prototype (Plattner et al 2010). This opened up likely outcomes for new ideas that I could have explored in future (Plattner 2013).
The focal points of interest of the “I Like, I Wish and What If” strategy is that it outlines the feedback that users give in a useful and positive way, empowering an open discourse or absorption of input (Bleecker 2010). As opposed to stating something like “This component is terrible; for what reason is this design even being considered?”, Users are mounted to state something more useful, similar to “I wish you could fix this aspect to… “ and “Imagine a scenario in which you moved this… and included… “ (Dow 2011). This technique was the foundation of user feedback as seen below in detail (Plattner 2013).
Summarised overall feedback gathered; provided images below;
User 1 – Amelia; “But maybe something to look into could be that you could fix up your twitter a bit more, as it just links… maybe you could make memes.”
User 2 – Logan; “The only thing I would do different is to fix the ending of your videos like you know the unicorn image thing…make it look more professional.”
User 3 – Joshua; “Would be to focus on twitter more… see how…funny you are.”
User 4 – Riley; “maybe indulge in meme-ing for your twitter because you are really good at it on your personal twitter dear.”
User 5 – Ethan; “the thing I would change, would be the quality of your videos.”
User 6 – Harley; “I would…change the name label thing…to plain…maybe animate it.”
User 7 – Carly; “the only thing I would change is the quality of the videos.”
After gathering the feedback from my end users, I needed to start a discussion on the most proficient method to incorporate the feedback I had been given (Plattner et al 2010). Along these lines, I began having a brainstorm session to generate new ideas with my partner to enable generation of thoughts to coordinate the input gathered into my prototypes (Plattner 2010). Be that as it may, I made sure to have a bias towards action and to continue iterating prototypes regularly, testing and incorporating my discoveries (Dow 2011). The goal was to achieve the ideal solution that tended my user needs (Müller and Thoring 2012). In this way, all things considered, I made new prototypes, in which iterated the suggestions (Bleecker 2010). See contrast of prototyping through feedback below;
TWITTER FEEDBACK
TWITTER CHANGE FROM FEEDBACK
NAME TAG FEEDBACK
NAME TAG CHANGES FROM FEEDBACK
VIDEO QUALITY FEEDBACK
VIDEO QUALITY CHANGES FROM FEEDBACK
END CLIP FROM FEEDBACK
ENDING CLIP CHANGES FROM FEEDBACK
FINAL THOUGHTS
Designing through making is not just a strategy for prototyping and testing, but a type of material doodling (Plattner 2010). As it puts your brain into a space that is distracted with generally conventional processes, giving you the opportunity to think while you are effectively making (Dow 2011). It’s something beyond keeping your hands occupied while you reflect. It is a technique for legitimate critical thinking that stimulates the creative ability (Brown and Wyatt 2010). Additionally, when you glance back toward the end of it, you get a progression of prototypes that resemble what was inside your mind (Bleecker 2010). I believe there is also a considerable measure to be said for designing through making. The discussions spur on thoughts as the talk vacillates between legitimate making techniques and generally unqualified presumptions (Müller and Thoring 2012).
The rapid iteration based upon user input aided me to make approaches that were known to the creation, expression and dissemination within the needs of my digital artifact. This also enabled me to make the knowledge we made with the channel more accessible past (scholarly) experts in our (BCM) field, and more dynamic within the broader public in general (Brown and Wyatt 2010). Aesthetics was imperative here as well, as it made an impact on those we needed to reach and include on from the end user feedback (Plattner 2010). Pondering on what has been made creates knowledge and insights (Dow 2011). The principal objective of innovativeness was to build up a sort of knowledge and knowledge production that built upon the strengths of the design process which was more than I could have imagined from the start of my digital artifact (Plattner et al 2010).
References:
Bayles, D, & Orland, T, 2001, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, Image Continuum Press, Eugene, OR, pp. 54-59
Bleecker, J, 2010 Design Fiction: From Props to Prototypes, viewed October 15 2018, <http://blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com/2010/09/21/design-fiction-from-props-to-prototypes-2010-01sj-biennial-catalog-essay/>
Brown, T, & Wyatt, J, 2010, Design Thinking for Social Innovation, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter, pp.31-35.
Bunnell, K, 2004, Craft and digital technology, viewed 17 October 2018, <http://www.autonomatic.org.uk/archive/team/kb/craft%20and%20digital%20technology.pdf>
Cousins, B, 2018, DESIGN THINKING: ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING IN VUCA ENVIRONMENTS, Academy of Strategic Management Journal, vol 17, no 2, pp.1-18.
Dow, S, 2011, How prototyping practices affect design results, interactions, vol 18, no 3, pp.54-59.
Kummitha, R, K, R, 2018, Institutionalising design thinking in social entrepreneurship: A contextual analysis into social and organizational processes. Social Enterprise Journal, vol 14, no 1, pp.92-107.
Liedtka, J, 2018, Exploring the Impact of Design Thinking in Action, Darden Working Paper Series, pp 1-36.
Müller, R, M, & Thoring, K, 2012, Design thinking vs. lean startup: A comparison of two user-driven innovation strategies, Leading through design, pp.151.
Plattner H, 2010, An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE, d-school, viewed September 19 2018, <https://dschool-old.stanford.edu/sandbox/groups/designresources/wiki/36873/attachments/74b3d/ModeGuideBOOTCAMP2010L.pdf>
Plattner, H, 2013, Bootcamp Bootleg, d.school, viewed October 16 2018, <https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57c6b79629687fde090a0fdd/t/58890239db29d6cc6c3338f7/1485374014340/METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pdf>
Plattner H, 2013, An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE, d-school, pp.44, viewed October 19 2018 <https://dschool-old.stanford.edu/wp-content/themes/dschool/method-cards/i-like-i-wish-what-if.pdf>
Plattner, H, Meinel, C, & Leifer, L, J, 2011, Design thinking: Understand – improve – apply. Heidelberg; New York: Springer, pp.44-45
Schrage, M, 1999, Serious Play: How the World’s Best Companies Simulate to Innovate, Harvard Business School Press, Cambridge, MA, pp.177-189