Focus your Prototype and Test
How do you help early design thinkers build and test a prototype that truly assesses their point of view?
Relationship to Ambiguity
Our students have sometimes struggled to build a prototype that really answers the most important question (the one their Point of View frames up). This tool, created and iterated by Jeremy Utley, Perry Klebahn and Kathryn Segovia in d.leadership 2019 and Exec Ed 2019 helps design thinkers identify exactly what they should build to be testing their POV. We find that sometimes clarity is lost in the move from define to ideate and back to prototype, and this tool is meant to help bring clarity after the ambiguity (and exciting generation!) of ideation.
What
We
Tried
Our team designed this worksheet flow to help students navigate from the ambiguous "build something" to "here's the exact feature we should build out in the exact context to answer exactly the question framed by our POV." We also demo this tool on a project before we ask students to use it.
What
We
Learned
Getting very specific about what you're building helps you be very specific about what you are looking to learn in testing (which helps you very clearly iterate your specific point of view).
This tool gives early design thinkers more mindfulness of process and forces them to be specifically connected to the POV throughout testing.
Design Abilities Used
This tool helps design thinkers build a prototype that is connected to and intentionally tests the POV that inspired it (as opposed to testing a concept that might have ventured far from the original user inspiration and is in that way not very helpful in refining the team's understanding of the original user).
Acknowledgements
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