- The last of the four categories of prototyping
is learn.
Design thinking provides a variety of research
and validation techniques
that we observe and capture directly from people.
Two of the most effective at discovering
and testing designs are user studies and usability testing.
We typically employ user studies to discover needs
and pain points,
while user validation or usability testing
is frequently used to find out if it's a working hypothesis,
meaning it appears to provide the solution.
These work best if the activities
immerse your participants enough
so they open up and you can record their valuable feedback.
Then you're challenged with how you can share
those observations and feedback in a compelling format.
Typically we synthesize from recorded observations
and turn those into a multi-page report,
but what if there was a way to capture the emotion
of your subjects in the field
and generate a more accessible document?
Whenever you can, use prototypes in user studies
and validation.
For studies it can be super helpful if you use them
with the participants as a collaborative design exercise,
while validation can use them to engage the user
in a close to real scenario
and get their ideas for the design steps.
To use prototypes in these research activities
we'll need to shift our focus
to the fourth category of prototyping,
learn.
For example, if we are going into the field
to study people that will use our design
we'll have to focus on what we would like to learn
from those participants.
Recently frog had an opportunity
to continue a design research project in Africa
evaluating an interactive voice response system
for a free health and nutrition hotline.
But this was the second phase of work,
so sketches or even a paper prototype
would not engage the participants enough.
To solve for this we created a cheap, quick prototype
that proved invaluable.
After observing how participants used
the current IVR service on their phone
we handed them the prototype phone
to test out some of our ideas for service improvements.
We were able to quickly find out
which of our information architecture ideas made sense
and which of our hunches proved wrong.
So apply prototyping to these two ends of you will
of the design research spectrum.
Use it upfront in your research
by seeking opportunities where you can use it fast
and cheap approaches to produce prototypes
that your study participants can experience
and on the other end incorporate prototypes
as your main design deliverable.
That way you can plan to leverage them at the end
of the design cycles to validate your hypothesis.
These prototypes will also provide a clear path
to the next design cycle,
as they directly inform design decisions
and next steps.
So prototypes help start conversations
by immersing the participant in the field,
enabling us to learn from their experience in real-time.
Utilized with validation, they also help solidify
the next cycle of phase of work.
Finally, instead of struggling with a multi-page report,
you can share recordings of the study participants
with stakeholders and any team members
that were unable to join you in the field.