Focus your Prototype and Test

How do you help early design thinkers build and test a prototype that truly assesses their point of view?

Kelly Schmutte
Context
Tried and Tested
Medium
Worksheet
No items found.
Purpose for Students
Get Equipped
Date Added: 
June 2019

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

Designed by:

Kathryn Segovia
Kathryn Segovia
Head of Learning Experience Design, Executive Education, Stanford d.school
Jeremy Utley
Jeremy Utley
Director, Executive Education, Stanford d.school
Perry Klebahn
Perry Klebahn
Director, Executive Education, Stanford d.school
Sarah Holcomb
Sarah Holcomb
Head of Marketing, Executive Education, Stanford d.school

Design Abilities Used

Build + Craft Intentionally
Learn More about Design Abilities 

Permission

This resource is the original work of the Designer(s). I/we give permission for it to be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Submit a Resource

Know a resource that can help others navigate ambiguity? Submit for review and we’ll add it to our collection.

Submit a Resource
×