The desire to do work for grassroots
startups leads a successful agency to the question: "What if we offered a
condensed version of our process?"
-Kevin
Menzie-
One of the biggest challenges experienced by designers
is that they struggle to offer a condensed version of the product and get their
clients adopt their ideas. The clients ask for the evidence that design will
succeed. To cater this problem, the most radical and bold solution is to create
a ‘Rapid Prototype’. And this is where rapid prototyping comes in, taking lead
in the design industry and influencing the business relationship between the
clients and the designer.
Rapid prototyping- an iterative approach, uses
interface design in quickly imitating up the future state of the system. Rapid
prototyping can mean the difference between quickly finding your path to the
successful product and toiling away for months. Rapid prototyping- an iterative
approach, the process generates a set of data emulated as a ‘Prototype’.
Executing this rapidly and iteratively generates feedback early and often in
the process thus, improving the final design, minimizing need for changes and
enhancing client and designer relationships.
Rapid prototyping has revolutionized the industrial
manufacturing technology in the recent times, which allows direct
transformation of CAD files into functional prototypes. Additionally, it has
tremendously reduced lead time to produce physical prototypes necessary for
design verification. Thus, in product development, rapid prototyping and rapid
product development have turned out to be the key players in saving time and
money for the development of innovative products. Moreover, rapid prototyping
leads to a better and faster design where it facilitates the visual models,
experimenting with innovative blend of ideas and avoiding missed requirements.
A rapid prototyping process is a three step closed
loop process which operates in a cyclic manner. Firstly, step prototype helps
to covert user’s instructions and descriptions into mock ups employing best
experiences, standards and practices. Secondly, the review step of the
prototype is the evaluation phase to check whether it meets the desired
conditions and expectations. Finally, step refine which is entirely based on
the feedback highlights room for the improvement thus, identifying areas of
refinement and clarity. The prototype grows in breadth and depth over multiple iterations
until the prototype transforms to the finalized and finished product.
One of the unexpected benefits of rapid prototyping is
improvement in the impact of a design process on the relationship between the
designer and the client. The design discipline which deals with formal design
education largely focusses on the end user relationship. The science of rapid prototyping has
introduced another core discipline of ‘Intervention Design’, the formal thought
process of designing intervention thus, enhancing the quality and probability
of the final design. The emerging discipline with rapid prototyping as its
major tool will bolster the role of design in process manufacturing and will
also highlights the role of designer and end client relationship in design
manufacturing process.
Let the prototyping stage to use all your untapped
creative abilities and explore all the opportunities in the market.
