Rapid Prototyping
From IEOR 170 Spring 2007
Required Readings
- Experience Prototyping Marion Buchenau, Jane Suri. DIS 2000.
- A Day at Innovation U. Ed Brown. Fortune. 1999.Vol.139. (critique not needed on this one)
Coming Events
- 2007 Berkeley EECS Annual Research Symposium, a.k.a. BEARS 2007, on Thursday, 2/15/2007, seminars and open houses!
Discussions
Please post your critiques/commments on the required readings below. To do that, first login by using your user name and password, then click the "edit" tab on the top part of this page (between the "discussion" page and the "history" page), New to wikis? Read the Wiki editing guide. . Hint - Please put a whole line == ~~~~ == at the beginning of your submitted critique, so the wiki system will index, sign and date your submission automatically.
[edit] Onyi Lam 02:18, 11 February 2007 (PST)
Experience Prototyping
I found this article very interesting especially with the prototyped products introduced in the article and what are the experiences and findings with the products. Ideas can be generated and evaulated rapidly as the designers engage themselves in the physical and social activites associated with the products, and that's the basic idea of experiences prototyping. Among the products discussed in this article, i find the kiss communicator especially interesting in which the users are able to share some form of sensual intimation in the air. Another example I found very interesting was the inmitation of a train journey, in which a designer was asked to pplay the role of a ticketing machine. While experiences prototyping is not a new phenomenon, it is by no means a toolset or a formalized kit to solve design problems. It should however, be our attitutde when we are faced with design problems.
[edit] Patrick Liu 13:44, 11 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
This article summarizes how design is greatly influenced by “experience prototyping.” Allowing the clients to experience the design hands on allows for designers to better understand how the prototype should be altered. I really enjoyed Lao Tse’s quote, “What I hear I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand!” I believe this quote to be extremely true. By allowing the client to test out the product they can give greater feedback than the designers trying to figure out every single possible bug there is. Experience prototyping involves three steps: “Understanding existing user experiences and context, exploring and evaluating design ideas, and communicating ideas to an audience.” This article further details the process with many examples. In conclusion, personal and circumstantial factors affect people’s experiences with products. And even though experience prototyping is not yet perfected, it “brings a subjective richness to bear on design problems.”
[edit] Hong How Quek 22:24, 11 February 2007 (PST)
Experience Prototyping
The article introduces the concept of experience prototyping and illustrates it through a series of vivid examples that was able to sustain my interest throughout. The focus of experience prototyping is to design an integrated, interactive experience for the audience to actively participate in-- an experience shaped not just by product functionality, but also by externalities such as lighting and social conditions. What I found most interesting was the far reaching implications of Lao Tze's philosophical statement: "What I hear I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand!". This philosophy is really the core of experience prototyping, giving rise to techniques such as role playing, improvisation and bodystorming. In particular, I found bodystorming to be an extremely innovative idea-- an unlikely extension of the mindstorming process we are all very familiar with. No amount of reading or listening about another person's experience can be compared to being IN the same experience itself, that allows one to create lasting memories that are authentic and subjective The added personal experience allows the designer to understand the user's concerns in a more compelling fashion, and is likely to give rise to a more appropriate design.
[edit] Siu Pan Lam 01:16, 12 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
This article provides an interesting view on experience – it is subjective and prone to change depending multiple senses and feelings of your current state. The focus of the article is on experience prototyping, which is defined as “methods that allow designers, clients, or users to ‘experience it themselves’ rather than witnessing a demonstration or someone else’s experience.” In my opinion, this is a very powerful tool in design as more complex, multidisciplinary interactions are involved with current designs nowadays. As addressed in the article, people from different disciplines are likely to bring with them a unique understanding of the design issue at hand. In order to work effectively as a team, it is therefore helpful to have a common experience and point of view. The patient experience is a good illustration of this concept, when designers from the marketing and product planning sides translated their own experiences into the needs of a defibrillating pacemaker patient. I think it was a clever idea to put the designers in the shoes of the patient and let them experience first-hand on the emotional issues that the patient has to deal with in his or her daily life. This allows the designers to develop their own experience of the problems at hand and make more appropriate choices throughout all stages of the design and development process. I also find the kiss communicator discussed in the article to be very intriguing because the device is able to translate a personal gesture into a digital equivalent and exchange it between people in an intimate relationship. This is definitely a good way of “getting into the mood.”
[edit] Bryan Boling 16:07, 12 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
This article focused on the need for the designer to understand the user experience. In order to construct a product the design team must experience what the customer would experience, which can be accomplished in many ways. Here there are a number of examples provided that gives a good deal of insight into how the designers can integrate themselves into the customer role. I thought the most interesting method described in this article was the example where the design team rode a train and acted out scenarios posted on cards. By not allowing the train staff or any other passengers be aware of their presence, the design team was able to effectively gather data that would not be available any other way. In doing this, the designers were able to get a firsthand experience as a passenger, and didn’t have to rely on interviews or surveys to gather the information they needed. The article was also interesting because it gave examples of how potential prototypes would work just through improvisation. Without having anything built, or even designed, the team is able to get important information that might have taken much iteration to solve, even before the design of the initial prototype is finalized.
[edit] Justin Hsu 21:31, 12 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
The article "Experience Prototyping" really made me change the way that I think about prototypes. Before, I thought of prototypes being 1. a rough object when it came to physical products or 2. primitive code and rough layouts when it came to software. I thought that this was the extent that a designer could go to in terms of simulating the use of these products. The article's examples about how the designers immersed themselves in a simulation environment really opened my eyes as to how people could simulate the use of a given product. The example involving the defibrillating pacemaker simulation with pagers was an excellent example of how experience prototyping can help designers discover new necessary features simply by making them understand the lives of their users more thoroughly. It is a good way of catching design flaws before time and resources are wasted building a problematic high fidelity prototype. I thought it was neat that the design firm incorporated a theater and blue screen to their facilities. It is almost drama/motion picture-esque the way that the designers are encouraged to simulate user experiences. I also like the way that the article heavily emphasized low fidelity prototypes because they "seem to promote that attitude that it is the design question that is important, not the tools and techniques that can be bought to bear." I also appreciated the fact that the article did not completely dismiss more conventional prototyping and investigation methods like simple test trial observations. The only thing that I thought the article could improve on was the fact that the last 2 of the "3 critical design activities" (exploring design ideas, communicating design concepts were not particularly innovative in comparison to the first one (understanding existing experiences). The first step really struck me as novel and intriguing while the last two were concepts that have been discussed extensively in previous articles.
[edit] Rey Doctora 23:48, 12 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
The article by Buchenau and Suri was about how designers should understand the user’s point of view and, in a sense, put themselves in their shoes. The product made must take into account the user experience and the techniques suggested in this article to understand the user were very interesting to read. I particularly liked the sections about the ROV and the train team and how the design teams acted out various users. I think acting out scenarios gives insight otherwise not attainable personally if a design team simply conducted interviews. It also sounds fun. One problem I see with acting out scenarios, however, is that no matter how often you act out a particular scene, people are unique and will usually act in different ways. The same actor may not represent how other people may react. Nevertheless, I still thinking this role-playing is a great idea because it gives a better understanding of how designers should design their products with a user-centered focus.
[edit] Erin Palermo 02:47, 13 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
The topic of 'experience prototyping' is interesting, though I must admit, I don't see a point to prototyping if you are not using it as a tool for others to experience. I suppose you could create a prototype just to give a visual model for a supervisor, or even yourself, but in effect, that is also an 'experience prototype,' allowing the audience to interact with your idea in a way that they wouldn't have been able to otherwise. I enjoyed reading about the role-playing exercises. It seems like that would be fun to participate in. I think it is wise to test a variety of users, from experienced professionals in the targeted field, to other, unconnected people, who use the product in a certain scenario for their first time. In this way, you learn about important needed factors from the experienced ones, and you learn about ease of usability from the inexperienced ones. The kiss communicator was a pretty strange idea. I am curious if they actually developed such a device. I am interested in how exactly it works, because I found the explanation in this article to be lacking. They made an excellent point, though, about how to present such a device to someone. It needs to be considered how your device will come across to people in a business meeting, versus people on the street. By presenting a video showing its use, it is more likely to be successful than if they introduced the device without proper context. Overall, I enjoyed the article, and agree that prototypes are valuable tools.
[edit] Rakesh Vij 14:16, 13 February 2007 (PST)
Experience Prototyping: This article discusses the use and importance of "Experience Prototyping". This article was written by IDEO professionals who use this concept in their everyday work. The idea behind Experience Prototyping is that an experiences are dynamic and it is due to the culmination of various forces that you have the experience that you do. Due to this it is of utmost importance for prototypes to capture the total experience. The designers mention that the prototype can be of any sort, ranging from storyboards, sketches, or even video, but mostly the concept applies to prototypes that involve active participation. Through this technique you are able to not only witness other experiences, but also live the experience yourself. The three areas where Experience Prototyping is most valuable is in: understanding the existing experience, exploring and evaluating design, and communicating ideas to an audience. The article was actually very interesting as is goes through various product examples and shows how the concept is applied. Some of the products discussed were game controllers, airplane interiors, remote controls, and children's picture communicators. The article concludes mentioning again that it is the three key areas mentioned before where Experience Prototyping has the biggest affect, but there are still various unknown factors with this concept. I really enjoyed the article and look forward to reading more about Experience Prototyping.
[edit] Urvashi 15:16, 13 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
This article is about using prototypes to not only test out and run simulations on products but on experiences. This is because in many cases we need to test out user reactions to certain experiences that would be inconvenient or dangerous to carry out in real life. Experience prototyping helps the party involved (like a user, client or product designer) to feel the experience themselves and gauge the positive or negative responses they might get from customers. Experience prototyping also helps the team of people involved to get into the same state of mind while working together and fully understand the nature of the situation under consideration. When that happens, they all are on common ground in terms of what needs to be done and have “ownership” of their prototype. They can then work harmoniously together in solving the problem. Of course, knowledge about the customers and the technicalities of product design still have to be considered but experience prototyping helps us go one step further to try and make sure that the experience is as hassle free and smooth as possible for consumers.
[edit] Aubuchon 15:43, 13 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
Experience Prototyping is a method that helps designers better understand the intricacies of building a product. It involves actually sensing (touching, feeling, seeing, using) real artifacts to gain insights into how something should be designed. The idea is that while one person may be able to brainstorm in his head all the details about using an item, there will often be subtle ideas that were missed because such brainstorming does not afford the dynamics and the recollection of an actual experience with the item. Although this technique is not an exhaustive approach to prototyping, it is nevertheless helpful in understanding existing user experiences and context, exploring and evaluating design ideas, and communicating ideas to an audience.
[edit] Brian Loo 17:00, 13 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping” This article was about the idea of Experience Prototyping and why it is important. Experience prototyping is the idea of getting the users and designers to experience the product themselves. This concept lets designers consider more of the experience that the user will get then the actual design and product. Taking this experience into consideration is very important in a design as it provides the point of view of the users and how they will interact with the product. Also experiencing what their target group feels, they can help determine the needs of their users similar to needfinding. For example, the patient experience with the pagers gave designers the idea and mindset of the need for a system to give patients a warning of a shock so they do not live in fear. Overall I enjoyed reading this article as it gave creative ideas on how to simulate an experience such as role playing and games to find issues that users will face. The part the confused me was the ideas on the controller for an immersive environment. I didn’t understand what was it trying to accomplish and how it related back to the 3 objects that represented an experience.
[edit] Christopher Ling 18:45, 13 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
This article introduced the concept of experience prototyping, which emphasized “the experiential aspect of whatever representations are need to relive or convey and experience with a product, space, or system”. It is a way for designers and clients to effectively and creatively experience a real-life experience without have to incur unnecessary costs, inconveniences, or harm. An interesting example that stuck in my mind was with the underwater ROV, which had many complexities. Experience prototyping worked great here because the clients could not actually test the ROV unless it was actually built, but they simulated the next best thing by creating their own indoor environment to aid in detecting potential problems. I also enjoyed the idea of role playing, such as with the example of the employees simulating a train ride. Each of the employees had set roles, which allowed them to observe others more effectively. Overall, I enjoyed reading the article because it presented some innovative thought processes for prototyping and supported them with real situations.
[edit] Shilpi Verma 19:17, 13 February 2007 (PST)
Experiencing Prototyping: This article is about “experience prototyping,” which is the ability for the user to actually experience and engage themselves in the physical and social activities associated with the product. This method allows users, designers, and clients to actually “experience it themselves,” rather than going through some second hand experience. There are three different activities that are important within the “experience prototyping” process: understanding existing user experience and context, exploring and evaluating design ideas, communicating ideas to an audience. A prototype can vary from storyboards and sketches to videos. This article was very interesting because it gave examples of experience prototyping through various products such as game controllers, remote controls, LCD panels, and the digital camera. I am really interested in learning more about experience prototyping, and was really impressed by the concept since the article was written IDEO professionals. Overall, the article continuously emphasizes the affect that experience prototype has on the three areas mentioned earlier.
[edit] Nicolas Suryono 19:53, 13 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
I found this article to be pretty interesting since it expands our previous knowledge on brainstorming. Contrary to the previous articles that put emphasis getting abstract information from the user, this article put a strong emphasis in involving the user to experience the product. This article was based on Lao Tze's statement "What I hear I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand!" which clearly suggest that designer should make their user experience their product, not just seeing it. I found the bodystorming process to be extremely efficient for designers because no amount of information can match a user's hands on and personal experience with a product.
[edit] Michael Chen 20:04, 13 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping" More than anything else, I see this article to be more of a marketing tool for the IDEO company than a true academic paper. Basically, the paper is one example after another of IDEO designers playing make-believe for a living. That's kind of cool. The core concept of the paper is to consider the entire environment that happens when the product is in use. In doing so, the designers might catch insights that might otherwise be overlooked in a traditional, hold-up-the-prototype-and-comment method. By forcing the user experience onto the designer, the designer is required to go through every single step in the product use cycle, and disallows the mental "jumps" that inevitably occur in a group discussion. One point that I thought was important that was brought up is that the experience prototype only has to mimic a certain part of the final product, rather than mimic its entire feature set. The Kodak prototype looked nothing like a digital camera, but its functions captured the esssence of the product.
[edit] Timothy Manglicmot 20:07, 13 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
This article discusses “experience prototyping” and gives several examples of how it is applied. By letting the users interact with designs directly designers are better able to modify the design based on their observations. The author mentions a quote saying “What I hear I forget. What I see I remember. What I do, I understand!” And I see this quote to be right on with the best way for users to provide feedback, learning by doing. Often times in my case I am a hands on learner and by being able to interact with a design I know, personally, that I can provide better feedback than by only seeing or reading about a design. Although I do believe that a lot of design ideas can be found from researching, reading, or observing a design, I think the hands-on technique offers the best approach to designing things based on user needs.
[edit] Ricky Surachman 22:12, 13 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping” One of the most interesting idea that is suggested by this article is about the importance of experience. Just like in the article, experience is kind of hard to be described because there are so many factors that can contribute to that experience. So, it is important for the designer to find a guidelines so that the designing team can understand each other's idea. That is the reason why using a prototype can really help the team when they develop their idea. It can give many new experience and additional idea that they haven't think of before. Among the three activities within the design and development process where experience prototyping is valuable, I think the most difficult one is communicating the idea to audience. Because I also experienced it several times, knowing what you want to say but having difficulty to share the idea with other people, especially when the other people doesn't share the same background knowledge.
[edit] Raymond Kim 23:17, 13 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
Initially the article started off slow and quite abstract, dicussing the concept of experience in a philosophical way. Toward the middle however, more examples were presented which made it much more interesting. In the first example, pagers which mimic the spontaneity of a heart attack were used to show users the importance of having an effective communication device for people using pacemakers. Conversely, it was also interesting to see designers become much more involved in the process of "bodystorming" by creating makeshift environments such as the interior of a plane to really sit and feel out the user experience for themselves, because at the end of the workday, they are users themselves. The concept of "Experience Prototyping" seems most useful in my opinion when trying to seek funding for a project idea. Prospective investors could live through the user experience and be convinced themselves of the usefulness for the product.
[edit] Andrew prasetyo 23:37, 13 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
This is a very interesting article, and I enjoy reading it. The author explains another approach to find customers’ needs, i.e. through “experiencing”. People learn through experience. In this case, the designers try to put their feet on the users’ shoes to understand what the users feel and how the users react in a certain circumstance. Based on that personal experience, the designers can determine the likely product design. Though this approach requires different personality and different background in the designers’ team, this approach seems to be efficient to obtain users’ needs. In addition, through this approach, the designers may find insights that they have not thought before. Finding these insights is very important, especially in the evaluation stage of design process; because it helps the designers improve their design to be more user-friendly. The article also shows that using this approach, the designers can design almost anything, such as a pacemaker, a digital camera, an imaging device for kids, and even the kiss communicator.
[edit] Megan Whittey 23:44, 13 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
I enjoyed reading this article. It kept my attention and seems to apply alot to what we're doing in class, especially with the take out box ideas for Wednesday when we will be building a prototype. I liked the many examples this article provided. Each example seemed to apply a different way of prototyping, such as building and becoming the customer, sharing his/her experience like the pacemaker example. The train example was a way to improvise and actually be in real life situations like when they actually went on the train ride. The camera prototype where they gave it to children/users and observed them using it for a while was another type of prototyping. And, showing the video for the 'kissing machine' was another way to help show and improve prototyping. The kissing machine example was the weirdest one to me though. Not the way in which the example used prototyping, but the product. It seems too weird and intimate in my opinion. I feel prototyping and learning the different ways in which you could use it is a very important tool in today's day and age in designing and developing products.
[edit] Anar Joshi 00:16, 14 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”: This article outlined the methods used by the design team at IDEO to build prototypes. Just as with other methods that we have learned in this course, the designers’ sole purpose in prototyping was to fulfill the unmet needs of their users. The article focused on three main areas that experience prototyping can be used, which included, understanding existing user experience and context, exploring and evaluating design ideas, and communicating ideas to an audience. One example that they used was role playing a train journey where designers acted out specific scenes in order to better understand the user’s experience. The article stated that the designers’ insights were more valuable through role playing, since they were able to empathize with the customer’s story. I think that this activity is a creative approach to solicit the true drivers for consumer behavior and is more effective than traditional marketing tactics.
[edit] Esha Datta 00:49, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
I thought that all of the examples of experience prototyping in this article were extremely interesting. While I do not have experience with non-physical experience prototypes, I can see how this can be an extremely useful tool in design. Often times, it is difficult for a designer to put themselves in the users' place. With an appropriate experience prototype, designers can get a much better understanding of the needs. I thought the prototype with the pagers to simulate a patient experience was especially interesting and I can see how such an experiment would provide much additional insight into the patient's lifestyle.
[edit] Michael Toulouse 01:40, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
The article is about experience prototyping, which is pretty much paying attention to the specific appeal to the senses that a device makes, and to actually try and empathize, for lack of a better word, with the user's senses and experiences. There seems to be mention of using the imagnination to identify with the user where you can't get actual first hand experience, and also improvisation and roleplaying to analyze a prototype's effectiveness in whatever scenarios that can be thought up. As seen in a previous article, I don't remember which, emphasis in prototypes was on the actual screen or interface, for example, and not so much on the size or aesthetics of the device, since it was not as relevant to testing. Although it's an ugly phrase, the most apt word for experience prototyping might be "bodystorming", as the article put it.
[edit] Patricia Wang 02:18, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
This article describes a method of prototyping which pushes the designers to actively experience the system for which they are providing a design. Initially, the article focuses on why experiencing things firsthand makes a difference in understanding one’s environment. By fully engaging in a user’s environment, the designer can identify underlying and often subtle issues in order to more fully understand the design opportunities. I thought it was interesting that playing with props could prepare a designer to access the sort of physical awareness needed in more complex settings. Such a skill is applied in the airplane interior example, in which the designers participated in a number of “bodystorming” experiments. By enacting certain social situations and being physically involved, the designers were able to generate more ideas that took into account ergonomic and psychological comfort. The example about digital photography demonstrated that having something physical to interact with facilitates a great deal more understanding than verbal explanations.
[edit] James ChunJye Tong 08:40, 14 February 2007 (PST)
Experience Prototyping
This article explains the idea of experiencing prototype and gives example of how it really works during the design process. The designer must consider how the users feel when they use the product and this cannot be accomplished without having actual users to use their product. Letting the target users to experience the product is very important and gives the designers ideas about how to improve their products. I think the role-playing exercise is very interesting. The participants get a feel of a real life scenario so the designers will get a sense of whether or not their product is practical and is easy for the users to use. By creating such experience to the target users and communicate with the participants is more effective than expressing the designer’s idea verbally or graphically.
[edit] Connie Ko 10:34, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
This article is about experience prototyping, which means finding feedback about prototypes through experiences both the designers and users. According to the article, there are three different kinds of activities where Experiencing prototyping is valuable: understanding existing user experience, exploring and evaluating design ideas, and communicating ideas to an audience. I found the article rather interesting, I especially liked the example of ROV because it reminds me of the difficulty I have with navigating through video games. Though ROV is supposed to be an underwater operated vehicle, they had problems with understanding the controls and how to navigate the device, it kind of reminds me of when I can't navigate through some video games.
[edit] Minhaaj Khan 10:47, 14 February 2007 (PST)
Experience Prototyping
As we continue to learn about industrial design and human factors, experience prototyping is another tool to add to our tool belt for the design process. As contextual inquiry allows you to look at the user interact with his everyday surroundings; experience prototyping, while only creating only an approximate and partial simulation of the real experience users will have, brings a subjective view to help us understand design problems. "Experience Prototyping" are the methods that allow designers, clients or users to "experience it themselves" rather than witnessing a demonstration or someone else’s experience (contextual inquiry). Its funny, but before I took this class I understood the word prototype as a crude looking device with complex looking wires running through it. From reading this article and some previous ones, I now know that prototypes are meant to simulate an existing experience through whatever means necessary (e.g. even a drawing can represent a prototype!) due to the fact that it can’t be experienced directly because it is either not possible or just hasn’t been created. I think the most important sentence and probably the takeaway message of this article is the following, “…in all forms of prototyping, we inevitably make choices about what elements of the ultimate experience to represent and what to omit. This means recognizing that a single prototype is never enough. Multiple prototypes and other methods such as contextual observation, user testing and participatory design all bring important perspectives to complete the picture.” I just want to add that I really enjoyed this article and its examples and that it was a very quick read just because of how interesting the concept of “Experience Prototyping” was.
[edit] Shwan Kazzaz 12:09, 14 February 2007 (PST)
Experience Prototyping
This article addresses prototyping as an experience. They refer to experience as dynamic. The idea is to relive or simulate the experience a user might have with a product. In doing so, it gives a better understanding to the designer of how to improve the design. To be honest, this article was repetitive after it made this point, and the rest was fairly common sense. The rest of the article goes over examples of experiential prototyping, including one experience simulating a train ride. I do like the point made that experiential prototyping requires the work of a number of different types of designers, and even if the trial is unsuccessful, it at least brings together the designers to share ideas.
[edit] Christine Shih 12:59, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
Experience prototyping is a type of prototyping that allows designers, users, and clients to gain first hand experience using designs. I liked how they used the quote by the chinese philospher to make the point that you need to do something to understand it- hearingand seeing is not enough. I liked the example of simulating what it was to be like to be a defirbrillating pacemaker patients. Design team members were given pagers and paged at random times during the day-so they could understand the emotional and practicalconcerns and how to deal with them. I think the article makes a good point at the end when they said that no matter how goodExperience prototying is at promoting epathy we cannot be other people (non-designers)- we will still need to conduct research to understand other people's point of view.
[edit] HAK-SEUNG KIM 13:21, 14 February 2007 (PST)
Experiencing Prototype
This article tells us how to experience prototype. Also, the author divides by three types of experiencing prototype: understanding user experience and context, exploring an evaluating design ideas, and communicating with an audience. Especially, the author gives many examples (digital camera, kiss communicator, etc.) to help understand what he really wants to talk about. Over all, I like this article, and I could understand what the experiencing prototype is.
[edit] YeeWan Cheung 13:26, 14 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
It’s true that experience is not only about how we look, feel and hear, but it’s a mixture of contextual factors, such as social circumstances, time pressures, environmental conditions and many more. Experience Prototype is based on all these factors, and it is “any kind of representation what it might be like to engage with the product, space or system we are designing.” There is no doubt that design practice is a key element in innovation. We must also allow users to try on the product and give feedback for improvement. The authors have introduced three ways of use for Experience Prototyping: understanding existing user experiences and context, exploring and evaluating design ideas, and communicating ideas to an audience. I found the Kiss Communicator is a very interesting idea, however, people might prefer a cell phone instead of this cell phone size wireless communicator. Especially the G3 service, which allow instant video sending, is getting more popular and cheaper now.
[edit] Johannesleholm 13:28, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototpying"
I enjoyed this article because of the interesting examples of a technique the authors describe as ‘experience prototyping’. As the author alludes, many people forget what they hear, remember what they see, and understand what they do. To truly understand the user’s experience with prototyping, designers need not to merely show the product off, but let users play with working prototypes. By creating replica environments of where the product will be used, such as a mock airplane, designers are able to catch flaws or opportunities that may have been missed otherwise. By understanding the intimate experience of the user through ‘bodystorming,’ designers are able to better understand and user experience and make better working products.
[edit] Asmita Karandikar 13:32, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototpying"
This paper introduces the concept of “experience prototyping.” Experience prototyping means that we try to represent what if would be like to use and engage the product. The paper goes on to describe three scenarios where experience prototyping is used – to understand user experience and context, to explore and evaluate design ideas, and to communicate ideas. The paper also gives examples of prototypes for these three scenarios. The example that I find to be most interesting is the one describing “The Patient Experience.” The paper highlights an important point when saying that real patients could not be used. It makes me think about the ethical and moral issues involved in medical research, and the usefulness of a prototype in this situation. I am interested to learn more about prototyping in the medical field, and how it can be or already is being used as an alternative to controversial methods such as animal experimentation.
[edit] Yang Hung 13:43, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
This article talks about how experience prototyping has contributed to design projects in three different ways: developing understanding about the essence of an experience, exploring and evaluation ideas, and communicating the issues behind the idea. The difference from experience prototyping with traditional prototyping techniques is that experience prototyping is a blend or hybrid of multiple design disciplines. This sort of framework is more in tune with the design frameworks in today's more sophisticated products. Overall, I liked how the author used real examples to illustrate his points. I especially liked his description of the ROV operator example.
[edit] Katherine Tong 14:02, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
Unlike the contextual inquiry and needfinding articles, this paper describes the designers to take an active part in understanding the physical and emotional interactions with a product. I found this to be very interesting, especially in the example with "The Patient Experience" because the people involved with experience prototyping give themselves the first-hand experience of trying to become a specific type of person. Althought the people involved with this will never fully experience what a real patient does, I feel like the first-hand attempt gives a lot more insight than an apprentice-mentor observation.
[edit] Joshua Funamura 14:14, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
This article introduced the idea of experience prototyping and showed how important it is for the designers to understand what the user will experience. They provided interesting examples that introduced different methods at different levels of complexity and cost. I liked the idea of making an airplane 'set' to illustrate the flying experience, and it seemed to be pretty effective in use. I couldn't see too much value in getting professional improvisation actors to react to different situations and have the designers simply observe; however, I thought the role-playing by the team was an excellent idea that would tend to engage the designers in a more meaningful way. I really liked the examples of how crude props, like rocks, can be really effective in creating different types of experiences for the tester. From this article, I gathered that anything that the designers can experience - no matter how basic - can positively influence the final design. By experience the user's perspective first hand, the designers are able to use self-observation to create a user-centered design.
[edit] Ryan Panchadsaram 14:49, 14 February 2007 (PST)
Experience Prototyping
Being actively engaged with prototypes gives designers an understanding of the benefits and pitfalls of their products. The idea of experience prototyping is creating an simulation of the product that represents the "experience". Since design has evolved into a field that requires many backgrounds, experience prototypes provide a common vision for the product. With so many different people involved in a project, it is important that each person understands what the product looks like, sounds like, and feels like. The article identifies the specific uses of experience prototyping: (1) to understand the existing user experience and context, (2) to explore and evaluate design ideas, and (3) to communicate ideas to an audience. By creating an actual mockup, environment, or situation you can observe and learn many things that can influence your final design. The article gives great examples of the automatic defibrillator, the ROV, and airplane interior. At the end of the day, this is another technique we can use to create better products and designs.
[edit] Richard Chen 15:13, 14 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
This paper introduced a very effective and thorough method of evaluating a design via experience prototyping. What really resonated with me in this paper was the idea that it’s more of the mindset and the attitude that matters, instead of just seeing experience prototyping as just a set of unrelated tools for cold and objective analysis of design. Furthermore, I completely agree with the authors on the notion that information does indeed become more vivid and engaging when the designers themselves participate in using the products they have created. This brings up a quote that most of us may have heard while growing up—“only after stepping into someone else’s shoes are you able to truly ‘feel’ for them.” I’m glad that this article conjured up this notion that designing is all about relating and empathizing with the customer. And to do that effectively, the designer must capture and record all the observations, feelings, and memories that went through them as they were using the product. Thus, the process is more like a combination of both art and science—since it is subjective and based on varying degrees of experiences. Furthermore, what I found also useful was the idea of gathering a team of designers together so that each of them would have a different experience—and under a different context—when using the product, which was brought up in the role-playing exercises. I think that these role-playing exercises is a set of effective tools to give the product design a broad spectrum of perspectives and gives different angles on viewing the product. Those different angles then translate into different improvements on the product and into a better overall user experience.
[edit] Sumeet Patel 15:16, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
This article was interesting because it showed another technique that designers use to perfect their prototypes. Experience prototyping is putting the designers in the users shoes to generate the experience the user had in order to understand how their prototype works. This is a very good idea and is similar to the other techniques like need finding and interviewing because it simulates how a users mind works while using the prototype. While reading it though I found it hard to have designers pretending to experience the product because their level of expertise and knowledge of the prototypes are far superior to that of a normal user. This could bring up the problem of a designer feeling that the prototype is straightforward and easy to use while the actual user may not feel the same way. Overall this is a good exercise for designers to go through because it puts them in the shoes of the user.
[edit] Jason Hu 15:29, 14 February 2007 (PST)
Experience prototyping is the process of simulating not merely the physical dimensions or functional features of a proposed device, but all of the environmental and emotional factors that will be involved during the experience of using that device. It’s a process that tries to look beyond even how well a product works to how it will feel like it’s working in context. This level of understanding can only be found when designers de-emphasize the importance of high-fidelity physical prototypes, and instead creatively improvise and role-play through experience prototypes.
[edit] Rabia Siddiqi 15:46, 14 February 2007 (PST)
Experience Protoyping'
I found this article to be effective because it is well-written and provides clear examples. The idea of "experience prototyping" is very useful for designers because it is important to make sure that prototypes convey the same experience that the actual product is meant to convey to the user. While testing prototypes, designers should focus on whether they or their subjects are able to engage with the product the same way as they expect users to engage with it. The three project examples described were very interesting. I especially liked the game that designers developed while working on the ROV project. Watching one player give instructions to the other as to which directions to move his body and the camera, they were able to gain insight on the possible confusions that can arise. I also liked the airplane interior example, in which bodystorming was used to explore the setting and evaluate the comfort level. I believe all designers should use experience protoyping because the best way to fulfill the needs of consumers is to understand the nature of their interaction with the product.
[edit] Fenelia Kosasih 15:55, 14 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
As the title suggest, the article focuses the importance of getting the first-hand experience of the prototypes in a design process. According to the article, is not enough just to “witness a demonstration” or watching someone else use the prototype, it is important to also “experience it themselves.” The article acknowledged that experiences are subjective and emphasizes the importance of experiencing subjectively. After direct experience with the system, design ideas can be further explored and evaluated, and lastly communicated. The article overall is an interesting and easy read. Its ideas are well supported and illustrated through many real life examples.
[edit] Tawan Udtamadilok 15:58, 14 February 2007 (PST)
This article described a lot of ways that designers can understand the users that they are designing for. The article emphasizes the importance of understanding by experience and encourages the designer to perform or simulate the user’s activity. I thought this article showed a lot of creativity in the way that designers simulated the pacemaker. It allowed the designers to observe the problems that they had with the system. The important afterthought of this article was that designers should not forget that the designer can never be in the user’s position when designing the product, therefore, user feedback and several design iterations are necessary for the product’s success.
[edit] Marshall Anderson 16:04, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
I agree with this paper on the opinion that experience prototyping should be a conscious effort. The process really does make sense through all three phases and while you are likely to do some of it unconsciously, a conscious effort will just help your design effort that much more. Applying experience prototyping to understanding the existing experience is a nice addition to contextual inquiry. After observing an user in context, experience prototyping could be used to revisit observations in your head. Perhaps the best method is to literally become the user...that is do complete tasks in full context. I also liked the idea of being physical when evaluating ideas. I have noticed that you can sit on a design decision for a long time just thinking about it but once you build some quick little things everything can become clear. I also liked the ideal of using experience prototyping as a communication tool because I can see that sometimes clients might hear something a not like it but once they try it, they love it. I liked how this paper was down to earth by concluding with problems/questions regarding the completeness of experience prototyping.
[edit] Ryan Jue 16:11, 14 February 2007 (PST)
Experience Prototyping
The article was about using simulation experiments to prototype designs. I thought this article was pretty useful due to the need to be able to test out ideas without actually building the product. I thought the train and airplane simulations were really good examples of methods to test ideas without implementation. I feel that as engineers, we really a lot on numbers and equations. If the numbers come out right, then they must be. However, using human simulations can see that it's not just the optimal fit through equations, but also the optimal for other people.
[edit] Michael Lovejoy 16:12, 14 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
This article was a very interesting description of something that is difficult to describe. Experience prototyping can be explained as the “look and feel” of a product. It is very difficult to analyze this quantitatively. Experience prototyping involves actually experiencing the product, I suppose to allow the user to truly understand the intangible aspects of it. I like how the article specifically points out where this type of prototyping is useful: understanding existing user experiences, evaluating ideas, and presenting the ideas to an audience. The best way to learn anything is to actually do it. I have always believed that you can never truly understand foreign cultures and the ideas that come with them until you go and experience those cultures yourself. That’s why I enjoy traveling and seeing how other people live. People who are different from you aren’t better or worse – they’re just different, and it’s hard to understand that until you understand them. I thought this article was especially interesting, and I certainly like how the ideas from it can be applied to many different areas in life.
[edit] Umber Masood 16:15, 14 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
This reading was very interesting. Experience prototyping seems to be an effective way of gaining understanding of a technology. Previous readings have stressed interviews with users to determine how they use technologies, and I think this reading is the next step that should follow those interviews. A designer who makes a prototype and uses it will learn more from using it himself or herself than by watching others use it. Although experience prototyping is very valuable, I thought it was interesting that the reading mentioned that designers need to be careful how they use it. The example of showing a prototype digital camera to a client showed that some caution needs to be exercised in building prototypes and having people use them; the client was satisfied with the prototype even though it did not have all of the features the designers wanted to include.
[edit] Luna Dai 16:30, 14 February 2007 (PST)
"Experience Prototyping"
This article discusses the benefits of using prototypes to simulate the experience of using a potential product. First, experiencing the prototype allows different people to immediately grasp the essence of encountering and using the product. Second-hand demonstrations are too indirect and fail to give people a true sense of what it is like to use the product. Second, experience prototyping gives people a concrete experience to critique and build from. It is easier to propose improvements or construction critiques on an existing prototype that can be experienced than on a verbal or pictorial explanation. Thirdly, since it provides an experience, experience prototyping gives many people the same object to experience. This does away with discrepancies and provides a shared ground from which designers can build further. I especially liked the author's point that low-tech solutions seem to promote the design without regarding the importance of the technology behind it. It's a very different feeling to push a button and experience get a physical result instead of being told what the result should be.
[edit] ChuiShan Wong 16:24, 14 February 2007 (PST)
“Experience Prototyping”
This article intorduces how the concept “experience prototyping” affects design process. It allows user to test out the oroduct and hence more useful feedback can be obtained through the design process. I think this concept really helps because it enables user and customer to give a hand in design process and it actually helps improving the quality because more and more people are allowed to give useful feedback
[edit] Monica Tanza 16:34, 14 February 2007 (PST)
Experience Prototyping
I found this to be a fun and interesting article. I really enjoy articles such as this one that provide a large number of examples. I liked the idea of experience and the dynamic realtionships between things (as in, your experience depends on so much more than just one thing). Since this is true, one cannot have someone test a prototype in an isolated area, but rather, people must be immersed in surrounding similar to ones that will be the real thing. Also, this article really made me understand why prototypes must be crude. They have to be expressive enough to convey what they will do, but not constrain the imagination to further "fine-tuning". This goes back with a lot of other articles that we have read but it is an important observation. We must not have a final product until users have had a chance to test it multiple times and during multiple phases of the design process.
