Low fidelity prototyping
I love low-fidelity prototyping – in particular I love the way it often provokes a conversation which wanders well away from the original topic under discussion. The beauty of low-fidelity prototyping is it allows the viewer to fill in all the missing bits from their own perspective – it gives a really personal account of what they would want, on how they are already visualising it. It allows the imagination to run free.
This came back to me whilst at a workshop last week with Daria Loi, Lucy Suchman and Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino who were discussing design prototyping. The ethnography work from the UX group at Intel looked interesting – but it seemed to be as much about shaping future markets and selling utopian science fiction stories as it did about understanding social practices. There was much talk of the political economy at work here – big organisations can bring all the clout of the mass media and celebrities to the table. Does this really free the imagination? Or does it simply provide an unavoidable view of the future?
Tags: Aesthetics, Design Thinking, Futures, Learning Experiences