Developing and Testing Your Design Thinking Ideas (Part 4)

The last three Monthly Dose of Design articles have discussed what Design Thinking (DT) is, what it means for, and how it can be used by, market researchers and discussed DT’s Define and Develop phases.

In the last installment of our Design Thinking series, this month we’ll discuss DT’s Deliver phase. By now, you’ll have clearly defined the design problem you want to solve, formulated a ‘How Might We’ statement to frame how you’ll solve it, and created ideas about how to solve your design problem. Now you’ll prototype and test the best idea.

What is the Deliver phase?

The Deliver phase is where you turn your best ideas about how to solve your design problem into a prototype (a rough, preliminary form of the product or service that’ll solve your design problem). However, this isn’t your final output. DT is an iterative process where you’ll keep refining your prototype based on feedback

This is the only DT stage where Designers take the lead. However, as you’ll soon see, a prototype can be built in many ways. And most of them are simple from a design perspective.

What makes a good prototype?

Prototyping’s goal is to develop a rough example to 1) test quickly and 2) learn from its failures or successes. Validated learnings allow you to improve the prototype quickly and efficiently, whilst still in its early stages. This means your prototype must be:

1. Easily modifiable
   Changing your prototype quickly and testing it again is key to success. But having an easily modifiable prototype means you can include new ideas and for those to be re-tested
2. Quick to produce
   You don’t want to spend a long time developing your prototype, as it’ll most likely be re-developed as the process continues. Instead of spending time on fine details, the goal is to get a general idea across and get feedback.
3. Cheap to produce
   You don’t want to spend lots of money developing your prototype either, as it’ll likely change. Additionally, cheaper prototypes are easier to discard to make way for new ideas.
4. Easily discardable
   Don’t be afraid to discard your prototype, better solutions can appear during the Deliver process. Not falling in love with a single idea and being able to move on to better options is key to success.

What kind of prototypes are there?

Prototyping has many mediums. However, it’s best to pick the most appropriate medium for your situation. Here are five examples to choose from:

Sketches and diagrams

These are drawings that visualize your prototype and how it works. Keep them minimal and simple, so your user understands exactly what it is. Sketches and diagrams can help understand how your prototype works.

Paper Interfaces

These are paper drawings that resemble the same dimensions you’re designing for. These can be used as the initial prototype for digital solutions e.g. apps. Paper Interfaces allow you to test the user flow and allow for multiple versions, which you can change between.

Storyboards

A storyboard is a visual sequence of how you want to show your product. It breaks downs the presented process into steps and this helps the user visualize the journey. Storyboards are a sequence of sketches showing how your prototype will be used.

Videos

Video can be a recording or reproduction of moving visual images. Videos allow your users to see your prototype in action. This is appropriate for lots of different solutions ranging from digital to service.

Physical Models

A physical mock-up is a 3D visualization of your solution. This allows users to touch, smell, and physically evaluate your prototype.

How do you test and develop your prototype?

Once you’ve built your prototype, you must test and validate it. This is something you’ll be familiar with as researchers! So instead of discussing the techniques (which you’ll probably know!), here’s an example of the prototype for an anti-cyberbullying app that stops messages when profanity or hate is detected and was tested iteratively with relevant people (youths) via testing and learning.

The example below shows our high fidelity prototype, which was sent out for mass testing, however, before this, we started with low fidelity prototypes (sketches and paper interfaces) to share ideas and improve upon.

Step 1: Getting a youth’s opinion

Youths told us that our initial prototype made them behave counterproductively. They felt they should be able to send a message if they wanted and any restrictions should be optional, not forced.

Step 2: Proposing new (hopefully better!) ideas

We proposed a “time delay function” to replace the message block function. This gave youths a choice of whether to send a message or not. If they chose to send it, the keyboard places the outgoing message on a five-second timer before sending it to give the youth time to reflect.

Step 3: We asked youths about the benefits of the “time delay function”

Youths agreed that the “time delay function” was less intrusive and made them aware of their actions.

This example demonstrates how testing can lead to new learnings and improved prototypes that are viable and practical through iterations.

Next month…

Next month we’ll look at a customized Market Research design thinking framework and how it plays towards market research’s strengths, with a look at how to turn research into a product.

Header Image: Kelly Sikkema, Unsplash