Prototyping
10 Principle of Prototyping
1. Make it visual and tangible.
a. Spark conversations
2. Embrace a beginner’s mind.
a. Use a fresh mindset
b. Explore new ways
3. Don’t fall in love with first ideas- create alternative.
a. Refining ideas early prevents creating and exploring
4. Feel comfortable in a “liquid state.”
a. Right direction is unclear at first
5. Start with low fidelity. Iterate, and refine
a. Keep rough, quick, and cheap
b. Refine with increasing knowledge
6. Expose your work early- seek criticism
a. Seek early and before refining
b. Don’t take personally
7. Learn faster by failing early, often, and cheaply
a. Keep failure cheap
b. MVPs, napkin sketches
8. Use creativity techniques
9. Create “Shrek models”
a. Outrageous and extreme prototypes to spark debate and learning
10. Track learning, insights, and progress
a. may use earlier insights and ideas later
Make Ideas Visible with Napkin Sketches
• Objective
o Quickly visualize ideas for value proposition
• Outcome
o Alternative prototypes in the form of napkin sketches
• Napkin sketches
o Cheap way to make ideas tangible and sharable
o Avoid details of how an idea works
• Used for
o Quickly sharing ideas and evaluate
o Rough so you can throw away ideas and explore alternatives
o Use early to gather feedback
• Caveat
o Napkin sketches are an exploratory tool
o Transform ideas
10 Principle of Prototyping
1. Make it visual and tangible.
a. Spark conversations
2. Embrace a beginner’s mind.
a. Use a fresh mindset
b. Explore new ways
3. Don’t fall in love with first ideas- create alternative.
a. Refining ideas early prevents creating and exploring
4. Feel comfortable in a “liquid state.”
a. Right direction is unclear at first
5. Start with low fidelity. Iterate, and refine
a. Keep rough, quick, and cheap
b. Refine with increasing knowledge
6. Expose your work early- seek criticism
a. Seek early and before refining
b. Don’t take personally
7. Learn faster by failing early, often, and cheaply
a. Keep failure cheap
b. MVPs, napkin sketches
8. Use creativity techniques
9. Create “Shrek models”
a. Outrageous and extreme prototypes to spark debate and learning
10. Track learning, insights, and progress
a. may use earlier insights and ideas later
Make Ideas Visible with Napkin Sketches
• Objective
o Quickly visualize ideas for value proposition
• Outcome
o Alternative prototypes in the form of napkin sketches
• Napkin sketches
o Cheap way to make ideas tangible and sharable
o Avoid details of how an idea works
• Used for
o Quickly sharing ideas and evaluate
o Rough so you can throw away ideas and explore alternatives
o Use early to gather feedback
• Caveat
o Napkin sketches are an exploratory tool
o Transform ideas
