A picture is worth a thousand words – and a prototype is worth a thousand pictures. Dennis Fischer, partner of the Munich-based innovation consultancy methodworks, explains why prototyping is so important in design thinking and what exactly design thinking is in the gateway Magazine.
Design Thinking. This method is currently on everyone's lips and is particularly popular in the startup scene. But where does this term come from? Is it really a method, and what does it entail?
One of the driving forces behind the movement is David Kelley. The American electrical engineer was fascinated by the subject of product design, in which he earned his second degree from Stanford in 1978. He co-founded the world-renowned design and innovation consultancy IDEO and established the d.school at Stanford. This "inventor school" teaches design thinking and sees itself as a "hub of innovation." Hasso Plattner, co-founder of SAP, made the establishment of the d.school financially possible with a donation of $35 million. He also founded a counterpart in Potsdam, the Hasso Plattner Institute. These institutions have contributed to the popularity of design thinking in the USA and German-speaking countries.
A picture says more than a thousand words
Design Thinking draws on selected and sometimes simplified design principles and methods. In multidisciplinary teams, design thinkers strive to solve problems while always keeping the customer at the center. Therefore, this approach is often referred to as 'human-centered design'.
Problems are opportunities for innovation—not obstacles. A successful innovation process requires several prerequisites: first, a team from diverse disciplines, departments, and hierarchical levels, with the help of diverse perspectives, experiences, and controversial discussion, to achieve an outstanding result.
The second prerequisite of design thinking is visual thinking. "A picture is worth a thousand words": We all know this saying. And once you've worked in an interdisciplinary team with people from different backgrounds, you'll understand how much easier it is to explain an idea with a sketch than to describe it in words.
Design Thinking takes advantage of precisely this effect, striving to express as little as possible in words and as much as possible in images. The quality of the sketches or prototypes is initially secondary. What's more important is that the content is communicated clearly and simply. Visual thinking leads to one of the most important aspects of Design Thinking: the prototype.
Rapid prototyping and the limiting resources: time and money
“The best way to experience an experience is to experience it.” (William Grant 'Bill' Moggridge)
To create a product or service that's truly customer-focused, customers should be actively involved in the development process. This works best by allowing the customer to physically experience the current idea or development stage in the form of a prototype.
However, in almost every Design Thinking project, there are two limiting resources: time and money. For this reason, you start with so-called 'low-resolution prototypes' and develop them into 'high-resolution prototypes' over time.
This can be easily explained by the resolution of a television: Of course, you prefer to watch a football match in full HD resolution, but if all you want to do is see whether the team with the blue or the red jerseys has scored a goal, a pixelated display is sufficient.
Post-it sketch or click dummy: Rough, rapid, right
“Fail early to succeed sooner.” (Tim Brown)
A good prototype should always fulfill three characteristics: rough, rapid, right!
It needs to be just good enough ('rough') for the potential user to understand the core features and focus solely on the most important features of the product. So, if you want to find out whether a customer would be willing to schedule a dentist appointment via an app, for example, it's enough to show them this one feature. They don't need to be able to change their personal data or go through the login process during this step.
At the same time, the prototype should be able to be created quickly ('rapidly') to test various hypotheses promptly. This avoids spending weeks tinkering with an idea that might not find any market take-up. The prototype must then be adapted to the needs of the users.
Choosing the right type of prototype is also important. Essentially, each team is free to choose how they want to present the prototype. From Post-it sketches to Lego figures to role-playing games and digital click dummies, anything is possible.
It is important to understand that it is usually sufficient to present the functionalities on the surface without having written a single line of code or developed a real, functioning product in the background.
There are now very good free tools for this, such as marvelapp or protapp, with the help of which you can sufficiently simulate an app within an hour.
Rough, rapid, right: Prototyping focuses on the essentials
But a business model is also a type of prototype that can help explain a business model to the customer and quickly obtain feedback. Frameworks such as the Business Model Canvas.
However, prototypes are not only used for simple products or services. They are also used in technical fields such as the construction of gas turbines. for example the company General Electric Rapid Prototyping.
“Show, don’t tell!”
However, the prototype is worthless if it isn't tested properly. The motto here is: "Show, don't tell!"
In other words: The customer should be allowed to explore the prototype for themselves and express their initial thoughts aloud. The result will be less meaningful if the developer explains all the features of the prototype to the user before asking for feedback.
The developer should be open to feedback of any kind and put their own thoughts and feelings aside in order to, as already described in the introduction, truly focus on the customer. A short animated video on testing prototypes can be found here. here.
Book recommendations for further study
For those who would like to delve deeper into the topic of prototyping, we recommend the following four books: 1) Falk Uebernickel et al.: Design Thinking – The Handbook. 2) Tim Brown: Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. 3) David Kelley & Tom Kelley: Creative
Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All. 4) Michael Lewrick, Patrick Link & Larry Leifer: The Design Thinking Playbook: With traditional, current and future success factors.
About the author
After completing his studies in France, Dennis Fischer moved to Berlin to work in various startups, primarily in the e-food sector. For the past three years, he has lived and worked in Munich, where he completed a one-year part-time qualification at the Munich University of Applied Sciences in the areas of entrepreneurship, design thinking, and lean startup. In 2016, he founded the innovation consultancy methodworks with two other colleagues. You can read another guest article by Dennis here. on the topic of time management.
The article appeared in the current issue of gateWay.
You can also find more exciting news about startups and the technology-oriented startup scene in the previous issues of gateway, the magazine from the gate – Garching Technology and Startup Center GmbH.
