Validating your ideas through prototyping…
The importance of proving out a design idea.
Without a working prototype a design concept is just that a ‘concept’.
The very nature of product prototyping allows designers and creators to bring their ideas to life in a tangible form. This process involves transforming ideas and sketches into physical "proof-out" models that can be tested. Prototypes also allow designers to challenge their assumptions, gather feedback, and validate their concepts quickly and efficiently, minimising costs and development time. A rough and ready prototyping exercise enables a designer to test a concept with the intended user group to gain critical feedback as quickly as possible. This is a fundamental part of the product development process and will enable you to get the answers you need quickly to push the product concept in the right direction.
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." — Albert Einstein
My advice would be to prototype as early as possible and extract as much feedback as you can. Be sure to use this process as a valuable learning experience. There is nothing wrong with building something that doesn't work entirely as you expected to begin with. Forget any styling details at this stage, such as color and the overall concept's appearance. Focus purely on the functionality and the value you are trying to create for the end-user.
The first questions that should be asked is whether the concept really works, does it deliver real value and solve the problem.
Sometimes, this can be difficult to answer at the beginning of prototyping, and you'll have to run through a few trial stages before you can arrive at some of the answers. Another important point to note here is that a prototype is designed to be tested, used, and modified. It's not designed to look pretty and sit on a shelf as a piece of modern art.
…I mean it could be but that’s not what a prototype is for.
It's always helpful before running testing trials to form a list of questions or potential problem areas you hope to resolve. It's a designer's job to really focus on these areas and highlight room for improvements or suggest alternative methods or ways of working. That's why a low-cost and crude representation is so valuable; the overall look doesn't really matter, and the core focus should be on modifying the concept until it works in principle.
Whilst running the trials you will hopefully discover insights and start forming questions like:
The user doesn’t interact with the concept in the way I had expected?
Maybe it would be better using the product in a slightly different way, perhaps there is a more efficient process?
Does including ‘X’ provide real value to the end user.
Perhaps there is a different user group here we had not originally considered?
The core things you will want to take from the exercise are understanding the components that are absolutely essential and those that are not. If there are features that increase the complexity when it comes to manufacturing and offer little benefit to the end-user, you'll want to lose them and simplify the design.
Focus on the value you are really trying to deliver and the reasons why your intended user would choose your product among one of your competitors. This, in turn, will inform your value proposition and should help to strengthen your case for the product to exist.
