Test and learn from prototypes
Do Not Assume…
you know how your ideas will work out in the real world.
By now you’ve looked into the lived experience of the problem and generated completely new and brilliant ideas. All that is left is to implement them full fledge right? Wrong!
To make sure you are tackling the right problem and thinking in the right direction, you have to make your ideas tangible and discuss them with the people they are intended for. You never know how your ideas are going to work in practice until you try them out. And by you I mean them, the people who are going to use your ideas in their practice, the same people that have the problem that you are trying to tackle. If you are able to make your ideas tangible, in whichever rudimentary form, they can experiment with them, try them out, and give you feedback on how it’s all working. Valuable feedback that helps you to improve on your ideas.
We all know prototypes of physical products that people try out and give feedback on. But also in the current services- and information-intensive economy our plans and processes can, and should be, made tangible to communicate them and receive feedback. There are many options to do this like for example creating so-called customer and experience journeys, bodystorming, storyboards, test sets, etc. The knowledge for this phase is mainly derived from the fields of object-centered sociality, socio-materiality, and affordances
Do Not Assume... 