EXPERIENTIAL PROTOTYPING: A NEW DESIGN METHOD

+problem
Emerging technologies are challenging our current design processes. For designers, our technology-embedded world leads to more complexity. Designing systems that incorporate technology, products, and services, require multiple disciplines in the design process such as engineering, sociology, ethnographic researchers, interaction and experience designers to name a few. Gone are the days of the lone designer. Collaboration between these disciplines is key for designing successful solutions. This need for collaboration requires a new design practice to help design teams in the invention, evaluation, and communication phases of the ideation process.

+ new method
Experiential Prototyping is a new practice of design that addresses this emerging need by employing a new method inserted between the design brief and prototype of the ideation process. It deploys a variety of media as the ideation tool itself. (for example: explain business approach to design, sticky notes on wall, vs. my brainstorming book). The outcome of this new method is not the direct solution, rather, it merges media with tangible interactions to provide context that leaves just enough blank space for inspiration among the design team. (for example) These blank spaces are where the design innovations occur.

"Tangioactive" - merges media design with tangible and interactive ideations

+ value
Experiential Prototyping uses a variety
Experiential Prototyping creates a "play" space for designers. and provides context in which to design within each designer's specialty.

+ example
case study

 

EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Our experiences are increasingly digital and connected.

• A different approach to design that has wider boundaries than traditional design and that strives for creating experiences beyond just products or services
• The view of a product or service from the entire lifecycle with a customer, from before they perceive the need to when they discard it
• Creating a relationship with individuals, not targeting a mass market
• Concerned with invoking and creating an environment that connects on an emotional or value level to the customer
• Built upon both traditional design disciplines in the creation of products, services, as well as environments in a variety of disciplines.
  

POSITIONING

Experiential Prototyping is a new form of experience design for our technology-embedded world. It uses a hybrid form of scenario building that is wedged between the design brief and prototyping phases of the product design process. This new method merges interactive tangibles with narrative to tell a story of how a system works resulting in a new term called "experiential prototyping".

diagram »

EXPERIENTIAL PROTOTYPING

In addition to the method of using narrative-inspired ideation, Experiential Prototyping uses touchable/tangible interactions to demonstrate and communicate complex systems. The result is an experiential prototype that merges narrative with physical interactions. This method should not be confused with the design of the product and its form, rather, it is used to communicate the potential experience and interactions of the system, which can then later be applied to the product(s) being designed. For example:

• show RUN: scenarios + interactive shoe demo
• show Guitar Center: scenario + interactive mixing installation demo

Experiential Prototyping is also used to evaluate specific interactions within a system such as ambient displays, and gestural interactions, etc... For example:

• show the interactive demo researching color as a way to communicate dynamic information in an ambient way (sails, part of the run system extended into other sports)
• show interactive demo researching sports gestures as a way to pass information between devices (hot potato)
  
  

THE METHOD

Phase 1: Invention + Ideation
Audience: Collaborative Design Team

Experiential Prototyping’s first phase is the invention process. This stage follows two steps followed by the design brief: (1) the making of a story, and (2) visualizing the story.

Step 1: making of a story
The first step invites the design team to collaborate in the story making process through a multitude of methods that are used to inspire solutions (discussed in detail later on). Yves Behar (April 2005), a product designer, says that “objects should tell a story”. (add presentation citation & show an example) As Behar designs products that tell stories, a Experiential Prototypinger tells stories that inspire the products.The story begins to sculpt a world used to inspire solutions from a collaborative design team. The Experiential Prototyper guides the team in identifying trends in culture, economy, and society, investigating the context, communities, and behaviors, and translating the findings into a new invention. The story is then used to inform the shape of a device, system of objects, or touchable environment according to human behaviors, needs, and relationships from within the context for which the solution is being designed.

Step 2: visualizing the story
The second step is the process of visualizing the story by designing a world in which the inventions would be used. This visualized world is used to see the relationships between people, their devices, and between the devices themselves. In conjunction, it is used to inspire solutions within the design team without rushing to a conclusion (also discussed in detail later on). This encourages collaboration in multi-disciplinary teams and allows room for surprise discoveries within the context of the story.

Phase 3: Evaluation
Audience: Collaborative Design Team + Users

Phase 3: Communication
Audience: Organizations + Investors

Experiential Prototyping’s third phase is to communicate the new invention clearly through the use of user-based and experiential storytelling, which combines interactive tangibles with the story. The new ecology of systems are complex. Not only are they more complex to design, they are more complicated to explain across multiple disciplines and organizations effectively. This phase helps bridge that gap between the idea and explanation before spending resources on building out prototypes. A Experiential Prototyper tells the story that provides the experience of the invention the best, resulting in an experiential, narrative, and tangible prototype. The method is used for three objectives: (1) to guide design teams further in the invention process, (2) to evaluate solutions, and (3) to communicate the concept in an experiential way.

Invent
As the story is being developed, small snippets can be taken and made into interactive scenarios to test out the concept. This method of interactive “social prototyping” (explain this) is used to invent the relationships between people, their objects, and their environments within the context of the story. It is used to identify where the needs are for solutions without yet coming to a conclusion on what the devices are.

Evaluate
Once the relationships are established, devices are added to the snippets and placed in the interactive story, including interactive tangibles that are used to evaluate the experience. The design team uses this method to evaluate the solution so that refinements can be made before building out a more robust experience.

Experience
Once the solution is invented and the story created, a more complete experiential scenario is built to help the design team see the system in its entirety and communicate it to decision-makers within the organization. This audience can include business development, marketers, venture capitalists, and even journalists.