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Prototyping - Falling in love with the journey
Prototyping is one of the most useful tools for those who wish to put a new product out into the world or engage their audience in novel ways. It allows the testing of concepts, ideas and plans on the world and to get feedback, to improve the product to create an optimal user experience. The revolutionary nature of prototypes means that each builds on the previous one, highlighting the progress made while simultaneously giving the project a more real feeling.
“Prototyping is a question embodied.” Therefore, the initial purpose of prototyping is to visualise any questions that might arise. It is a way to deeply look into what is yet unknown and has to be uncovered to move forward into the next stages of creation. The goal of that would be to learn from earlier mistakes or miscalculations and to keep up working on and improving the product until it is fit for actual use. These product mock-ups can be tested by anyone, although the most valuable insights come from testers who are part of the targeted audience as well.
When working with this method of gaining insights it is essential to ask questions. Therefore, good prototypes provoke useful feedback from testers that can be implemented and built upon.
The value of a prototype lies in its ultimate failure, as without failure there would be nothing to improve or the product is simply not relevant enough. Additionally, it is essential to fail early on in the project and to keep refining the product several times before finalising it. This helps save resources, as when the project fails in a later stage, time and precious budget will have been wasted. That is also known as the idea of fidelity, which is essentially how closely the prototype resembles the final outcome. It is better not to work hi-fi too soon as it is easy to get stuck discussing unimportant details instead of the important aspects. How low or high the fidelity should be depends on the clients, the stage of process and the social environment in which it will be discussed.
A low budget solution that is also fast and easy to do is the MVP, the minimum viable product, which is a rough mock-up version of the product or event. It is a prototype in its most basic form, yet one of the most effective ones because what works will become clearer as the progress unfolds one can build on that and keep going.
There are many different types of prototyping, the most widely used ones being horizontal/ vertical prototyping, bodystorming, storyboarding, video and paper prototyping.
Horizontal/vertical prototyping, is used for websites and apps. Deep columns show the interaction flow, whereas shallow columns show the range of available options. Bodystorming consists of physically playing around with different ideas, testing them with abstract objects or in roughly recreated environments. Storyboarding is a drawn or illustrated storyboard that visually shows the idea. Another very interesting version of this is video prototyping. This consists of creating a video usually showing a situation in which the product is already real, which also shows how people will interact with or use it. This method is especially nice as it seems real and therefore gets people to ask questions. The last way, paper prototyping, can be used in all phases of the project. By sketching out the idea, which can be anywhere from a rough layout to a hi-fi one, it is often faster than prototypes made with a computer and allows to easily visualise the concept. Additionally, real interactions can be simulated and recorded with a phone to create a video or GIF.
A definite drawback to prototyping on the other hand could be the problem of finding the right audience to test it on, because otherwise the insights gained could turn out to be useless or misleading. It could also happen that one does not get the right feedback at first and then goes on to create a high budget mock-up, which turns out to fail, in which case time and resources would have been wasted. It should also be noted that this is by no means a linear process that often will move in several circles before completion.
I have found that storyboarding suits me very well as I prefer to work with paper as it allows more engagement than doing it digitally. I also feel like paper prototyping and maybe video prototyping could be very useful to me personally, as they are very creative and appeal to my visually thinking nature. At the same time I feel like horizontal/diagonal prototyping could be interesting to look into as well, just to get the basic idea down on paper.
References:
IDEO. (2015). You Can Prototype Anything. [Online] Available from: http://zine.ideo.com/wp-content/themes/semplice/IDEO-intct-YouCanPrototypeAnything.pdf [Accessed 12 December 2018]
UX Playground. (2015) Low fidelity prototype testing of the EE app [Online Video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yafaGNFu8Eg [Accessed 13 December 2018]
GOOGLE for Startups. (2016) Rapid Prototyping 1 of 3: Sketching & Paper Prototyping [Online Video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMjozqJS44M [Accessed 13 December 2018]
The Poetics of Advertising
In chapter 3 “The Poetics of Advertising” Andrew McStay (2013) investigates the relationship between advertising, arts and crafts and whether the first belongs to either one or the other of those categories. By trying to squish advertising into only one field does not seem very reasonable. It could even be argued, that it belongs to neither, but rather is its very own category, made from bits and pieces collected from the world and reassembled into something new, art with a purpose: mutual advantage.
According to him, the poetics of advertising lie in the way it is assembled from many different sources to create something which will affect people in a specific desired way.
He further argues that advertising, arts, crafts and other similar practices have been robbing each other of techniques, outlooks, etc. without caring for original intentions regarding style. Why does it need to be defined as any guild’s intellectual property, when it can just be seen as everyone’s to take, transform and create with? In the end everyone strives for something better or at least different, because with adapting a “foreign” style comes seeing the problem from a different angle and finding new, elegant solutions for problems by combining former individual practices.
One thing that came out of this was the poster. First more of an art form that sought to please aesthetically, then a way to destabilise tradition and play with the unconscious as Dada did. This also included a new honesty in purposefully exaggerating the fake nature of it to reinterpret advertising and fight the dullness of convention. Not much later it went through another transition, during which it became more about shining a new light on something deemed ordinary and uninteresting, which lead to the addition of a second way in which advertising can be poetic: the reforming of what the world has to offer into something new and interesting. It is public, yet has the potential to be incredibly intimate. A poster ad needs to deliver the necessary information with minimum means. Its power therefore comes from the distillation of the desired message to its essence in a new and captivating way, which is another way in which McStay defines the poetics of advertising.
But with the internet and technology becoming increasingly integrated into day to day lives there was another flux, from read-only to read-write media and with that the mutual participation in conversation between brands and consumers like never before. Where before advertising always tried to interrupt and demand attention, without caring much about relevance and to gain without giving back, this strategy is not working in modern society anymore. The 21st century consumer demands the truth, dedication and engagement from brands, which those, seeking to sell, are increasingly trying to fulfil. This is currently done by first getting the audience’s attention and then keeping it by offering interesting and interactive ways to involve that brand into a person’s life step by step, building a loyal customer base that then has the potential to keep growing more and more, almost more so through personal recommendations than through what is traditionally seen as advertising.
It is and endless process of finding new ways to get heard in a world that is getting ever noisier. Therefore, advertising still offers endless exciting possibilities of content creation, unexplored mediums, unthought of ways to engage directly with the consumer, even more effectively than we do now and it is highly encouraged to go out and seek them. It is spreading into every aspect of day to day life, through games, apps, social media, etc. and there is no way of stopping it.
Refinery29 for example found a brilliant way of integrating a campaign into everyday life, by hosting yearly interactive museums showing art pieces that the audience can engage with and experience. This includes things like VR painting, a silent disco with touch-sensitive floors and walls, mirroring installations and much more. (Refinery29. (2016))
Another campaign that has proven to be successful is the McDonalds App in Austria. It allows to collect points per purchase called “M”s that can be traded for specific products along with competitions, prize drawings, games and seasonal features like an advent calendar, all underlined with outdoor, print, TV and digital ads.
In conclusion, there is no use in complaining about advertising invading personal and public space, but instead it should be seen as a means of lots of exciting new opportunities to find the poetics in advertising.
References:
ANDREW McStay. (2013) Creativity and Advertising: Affect, Events and Process. Chapter 3: The Poetics of Advertising.
WILLIAM M. O’Barr. (2005) What Is Advertising? (Volume 6, Issue 3) [Online] Available from: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/193867 [Accessed: 12 December 2018]
WILLIAM M. O’Barr. (2007) What Is Advertising? (Volume 8, Issue 4) [Online] Available from: https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.falmouth.ac.uk/article/227198 [Accessed: 12 December 2018]
Refinery29. (2016) Exploring 29Rooms with Lucie Fink. [Online Video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=125&v=R9x82ZMJnuM [Accessed: 12 December 2018]
Photo Sources:
McDonald’s Austria App. [Accessed: 12 December 2018]
When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer—say, travelling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Driver, take me anywhere.
As Sir John Hegarty so nicely put it in his talk: You can't be successful without a fundamental belief or a philosophy that you work by, that drives you and comes out in the work that you do. According to this legend in advertising, everyone can be creative, because creativity is an expression of self. But how do you define creativity then? Is there a way to rationalise your own approach to generating ideas, concepts, new things; in other words: How do you find and outline your own approach to creativity?
To explain that we might have to go a bit further back and see how art was defined until now. Renaissance art, for example, was similar to advertising: The artists had to keep changing the same subject over and over again to keep the audience interested in something that they already knew. Before the middle of the 20th century, creativity and communication was controlled by authority and basically left no room for new concepts and ways. But time passed, the Arts started to move away from tradition and adapted a new outlook that fit the new age, taking new ideas and embracing them until they started to actively create new things that have never been seen and done that way before. By constantly being forced to think and consider things from a different perspective new ideas emerge and conventional thinking is challenged. It doesn't have to be an enormous idea, it just has to be effective. It should not be too extreme though, because as we have seen with Punk, you cannot just destroy something, it has to be replaced by something else, otherwise it will crumble and ultimately fail. Another thing Sir John Hegarty points out in his talk is that the most important tool in advertising is the truth. So rather than hiding the truth and advertising your product to be something it is not, and therefore provoking negative feedback and reactions from your audience, you embrace your difference and make them love it for exactly that. The last piece of advice Hegarty gives in his talk is that humour is a very powerful tool, as it takes away the power of authority. It gets people to listen even when they don't want to and makes hard facts easier to swallow. This goes hand in hand with Hegarty’s belief that cynicism kills creativity, because when you are not excited for what you are selling, how should your audience be? (JOHN Hegarty. 2016)
I personally agree with Hegarty’s last statement, because humour is definitely a thing that can been found in my way of looking at creativity. For me creativity has always been a way to express myself and to create aesthetically pleasing things as well as just have fun. Whether it's building a treehouses as a kid, drawing crazy doodles on the margins of textbooks, or altering clothes to make them more fun, more unique, more me. Going over my work I also realised the surreal and crazy nature of the things I create. But creativity can be much more subtle than that. It is also using the things I find around me to solve everyday problems: Don't have a lid for your pot? Just put chopping board on there and hope it doesn't melt. Running out of work space on my desk? Well now I have a box on the floor for me to work on. What I'm trying to say is that for me, creativity is a very spontaneous thing that you cannot force. You can help it reach its full potential through research though. Sponge up the world around you, appreciate the things that are put out into the world by other people and by nature. By collecting all these different facts, techniques, pictures, opinions. etc. I build my basis from which later concepts, ideas and random snippets come to me randomly. That can literally be anytime and anywhere. That is why I relate very much to another statement of Sir John Hegarty’s: “Creativity is like breathing. It is our life, it is what we do.” (ANDY Awards. 2016) Inspiration Series: Sir John Hegarty) as well as part of Jim Jarmusch’s manifesto: “Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems ,dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul.” (MovieMaker Magazine #53. 2004). So my approach to creativity, in the end, is to make an effort to know, to learn as many skills and things as possible, then just letting my ideas take to lead and see where that takes me, while usually keeping it honest and emotional, but in a fun way. “Be honest. Be open. Be real.” (JOSH Spector. 2017)
References:
ANDY Awards. (2018). Inspiration Series: Carol Williams. [Online Video]. 11 May 2018. Available from: https://www.andyawards.com. [Accessed: 8 December 2018].
ANDY Awards. (2016). Inspiration Series: Sir John Hegarty. [Online Video]. 12 December 2016. Available from: https://www.andyawards.com. [Accessed: 8 December 2018].
ANDY Awards. (2016). What is Bravery in Advertising? [Online Video]. 12 December 2016. Available from: https://www.youtube.com. [Accessed: 8 December 2018].
JIM Jarmusch. (2004). MovieMaker Magazine #53. [Online] 22 January 2004. Available from: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/131591-nothing-is-original-steal-from-anywhere-that-resonates-with-inspiration [Accessed: 5 December 2018]
JOSH Spector. (2017). A Manifesto For Creative People. [Online] 25 August 2017 Available from: https://medium.com/an-idea-for-you/a-manifesto-for-creative-people-398be17b3dc [Accessed: 11 December 2018]
SIR JOHN Hegarty. (2016). Creative Philosophy. [Online] Available from: http://bit.ly/2D4Xbe0 [Accessed: 11 December 2018].
If you want to be interesting, be interested.
Creativity has many faces
It can be playful, humorous, monumental, practical, aesthetic, fun, persuasive, simple, communicative and many more things, but essentially it is taking everyday things to create something new from them or to use them in a new way
Creativity is powerful
It can change people’s perception of something, make and deliver a message, change mindsets, solve problems in elegant and new ways and make the familiar strange.
Creative Problem Solving in Advertising
Nowadays it’s not just about being creative, we have to think of ways to make our audience be creative themselves with what we give them.
While we have to be creative to create advertising content, it’s debatable if it can be classified as actual art, after all it is a medium for information. The purpose of advertising is simple: To sell.
Don’t shut yourself to new things/ideas/concepts - Be open to everything!
you just gotta love those 3 weeks of autumn in between hot as balls and freezing your ass off