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The State of Prototyping Practice in the Industrial Setting: Potential, Challenges and Implications

Part of: Design Methods and Tools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2019

Sarah Diefenbach ,
Lara Christoforakos ,
Bettina Maisch  and
Kirstin Kohler
Sarah Diefenbach*
Affiliation:
Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich;
Lara Christoforakos
Affiliation:
Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich;
Bettina Maisch
Affiliation:
Siemens AG, Munich;
Kirstin Kohler
Affiliation:
University of Applied Sciences Mannheim
*
Contact: Diefenbach, Sarah, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Psychologie, Germany, sarah.diefenbach@lmu.de

Abstract

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Prototyping as a central method within innovation- and product development processes has a high acceptance in industry. Various prototyping tools provide impressive visualizations of product ideas in early development stages and especially low fidelity prototyping methods seem easily applicable. However, a closer look at prototyping in practice reveals a number of misunderstandings and barriers regarding effective prototyping, often related to different stakeholders’ (e.g., developer, designer, client) ideas about the purpose of prototyping. Based on a combination of literature analysis, adapting existing models and methods in user centered design (e.g., personas, double diamond design process) and empirical results from industrial research cooperation, we introduce a focus group format and a first model of prototyping maturity, which can help organizations to reflect on their state of practice in prototyping on an individual, team, and organizational level. The maturity model also forms a valuable theoretical lens for design research. Thus, our research aims at researchers in the field of prototyping as well as practitioners involved in prototyping and innovation processes.

Keywords

Design processUser centred designDesign practicePrototypingInnovation methods
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , July 2019 , pp. 1703 - 1712
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019

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