Experience Matters

Prototyping on the cheap - Part II

By day, Sean Howard works as a Director of Strategy and Innovation at Lift Communications, a brand experience studio in Toronto, Canada. By night, he goes by the name “Craphammer” - a lone blogger vigilante looking to set the marketing world straight. Sean was one of the commenters on our 100th post and we thought we’d extend an invitation to guest post here on Experience Matters. To our delight, Sean agreed to do so and in the process will be adding a couple of posts to our melting pot of voices. But enough about us, let’s hear what Sean, AKA “The Craphammer,” has to say:

There are many stages in a development (and research) process where I believe prototypes are highly effective and powerful parts of our arsenal. However, more than one person has brought up the costs associated with building prototypes and that this cost can preclude their use.

I wondered about this. Are prototypes really that expensive? Or rather, do they have to be?

This is part two of a two-part series where I present a number of ways to implement powerful prototyping methods on-the-cheap.

Re-enactments

We don’t always have to shoot video, build wireframes, snap photos or even design storyboards. Sometimes we can just act out. Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap devote some time to the power of role playing in their book “When Sparks Fly.”

They speak about how Interval Research had to equip a group of twenty-something researchers to be able to design interfaces for the elderly. They speak of a specific case where the team determined that visiting nursing homes and speaking to those most affected wasn’t enough.

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