Prototyping+101

Prototyping 101
Thursday, March 10, 2011 <>

**Topic overview:**
Today's class will introduce the art of prototyping, which is the art and practice of conducting experiments to answer questions you have about your product concept. Prototyping can take many different forms and can occur in many stages of the product development cycle. Early prototypes, for example, might be simple sketches on a whiteboard or a storyboard that shows drawings of how a customer might use your product or service. At later stages, you might build complex technical prototypes to evaluate the feasibility of two different approaches to solving a technical problem. The product conceptualization and design stages are where teams make the most common and effective use of prototyping techniques.

By the end of class today, you should:
 * Understand the role(s) of prototyping in the product conceptualization phase
 * Be able to match different prototyping techniques to the different types of questions and problems that need to be addressed
 * Have practiced putting together a prototyping strategy to explore and refine a proposed product solution

**Preparation for class:**
There is no specific reading required prior to class today. You will, however, probably need to go beyond just what is covered in class today to successfully complete the prototyping required in challenge problem #5 and in your final project. The Art of Innovation, by Tom Kelly, explains the ethos of exploratory product development and the role that prototyping plays in that process better than any of the other texts we use in this course. You would be well served to read the whole book, but chapter 6 has the strongest focus on prototyping in the book.
 * [KL01] Tom Kelly with Jonathan Littman, The Art of Innovation. ISBN: 0-385-49984-1

**Reference materials:**
Slides: