Design Thinking For Dummies

Chapter 13

Designing Prototypes

IN THIS CHAPTER

Planning the prototype creation process

Figuring out how best to use prototypes

Using stories to illustrate prototypes

Creating prototypes in the digital world

Your plan is to expand your idea into a functional concept for a product, service, or business model. A functioning sample concept is called a prototype and is used as a model for subsequent product, service, or business model innovations you plan on marketing. With a prototype, you can vividly present and test the essential functions and characteristics of your idea. Along the way, you’ll experiment with your prototype and gather important feedback from potential customers.

This chapter gives you an overview of the advantages offered by creating prototypes and performing experiments. The idea here is to create a prototype early on, without complex planning and with minimal means. My first piece of advice is that your very first step should consist of defining what you want to learn with a prototype. I then point out that there are different kinds of prototypes and that what ...