Creating a Prototype

How many times have you been given a brief that you have had read between the lines on to really understand what it is you need to do, worked hard on it, only to be told that you haven’t quite hit the nail on the head and need to start again? Come on, it happens to all of us. But there are many ways of reducing the amount of blood, sweat and tears that go into your projects and one of them is prototyping.

Prototyping isn’t a new concept, however is something that I, personally hadn’t done up until a few months ago and now I think it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

A prototype can be anything from a drawing on a scrap of paper to show to demonstrate design, to a working demo of a product. The beauty of a prototype is that it gives a clear example of how something is going to look rather than an idea which is up for interpretation.

So how does prototyping work? Well, research, brainstorm, prototype and get feedback.

Prototyping minimises the risk of spending money (or a lot of time) on something that isn’t fit for purpose because of the early feedback stage. It gives stakeholders in the project the ability to react and give opinions on the work before it’s too late. The initial feedback after the prototype is built gives people a chance to celebrate the failures and be honest about what doesn’t work and what needs changing without the frustration or upset of those who are working on the project.

Prototyping does take some getting used to, knowing how much detail to put into the example is a question I ask myself every time I start a new project, but I really think it depends on the project, like I mentioned earlier, sometimes a doodle on a scrap of paper is enough to get the message across.

I would love to hear about your experiences with prototyping, have you ever done it? If so what went well, and not so well? 

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  • Saw this and thought of this post 

  • Excellent post Lucy. As an L&D specialist I tend to design and build elearning modules when required. A few years ago I started out using storyboarding using Cathy Moore's blog for inspiration. I soon found this method good as it allowed me to clearly present and describe my ideas. However, I later found this approach to have limitations when taking the client through it, as they found it difficult to visualise the end product especially when the elearning had a lot of interactions, branching and media.

    Attending an internal development course at work around instructional design was a real eye-opener. In a recent project I designed a fully-working prototype, and after a few tweaks based on client feedback I built an elearning using the company's learning content management system. The time and toil I saved during the build stage was ground-breaking for me.

    • Great to hear about your experience Sahid. 

      I completely agree on the point about clients finding it difficult to visualise the end product, which is why I love prototyping so much. It really gives clients the opportunity to see what you are talking about and understand, not only the appearance but the functionality of lessons.

      Have you any examples of how you prototype that you could share with us?

  • Great post Lucy 

    Some interesting distinctions of different types of prototyping here linked to instructional design that are worth a read.

    3 levels of instructional design prototypes

    The idea around prototyping is linked to an agile methodology that comes from project management and software development but it works and fits so well to learning design.

    What is agile learning design?

    Look forward to hearing more on the subject and perhaps you sharing some examples ;)

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