Anatomy of Prototypes
Prototypes are primarily meant to be learned from, they are tools for discovery and design refinement right from the early and up to the final stages. Contrary to beginner’s mind, prototypes are not to evaluate the present success of design outcome, but rather targeted towards design practice and the process of designing. In this article I liked how the authors put it that prototypes should be "problem-setting rather than problem-solving" (Lim et al., 2008, p. 2).
Also, learning about the Fundamental prototyping principle was interesting: in turns out to be, a prototype should in its simplest form filter exactly the qualities that designers want to test (Lim et al., 2008). This was useful to take in consideration when we were prototyping for the video: in fact the video prototype itself was the focus rather than a good prototype which is to be depicted in the video. Therefore, we had to demonstrate "various ideas for interaction techniques without determining other qualities of design” (Lim et al., 2008, p. 3). Meaning, while prototyping the flexible device, what we were interested in was the possibility and ways to fold it as well as the user-friendliness of the folding action. At this early prototyping stage we didn’t think about the materials or UI: we let ourselves imagine the possible use of the device in users life minus the technical qualities, using the prototype as playground rather than a tool to sell our idea.
As the authors of the article sum-up, "the designer screens out unnecessary aspects of the design that a particular prototype does not need to explore” (Lim et al., 2008, p. 3). Dimensions should be taken into consideration: material, fidelity and scope of what the prototype seeks to explore.
Moreover, the Economic principle of prototyping states that design idea can be visible and measurable with a prototype that is simple and efficient.
This article gave an idea about what prototypes are in their essence and provided with arguments on why a low fidelity prototype can be equally valuable and, in many cases, much more valuable than a high fidelity prototype.