Prototyping and user testing is the best way to create successful products, but many designers skip this important step and use gut instinct instead. By explaining the goals and methodologies behind prototyping—and demonstrating how to prototype for both physical and digital products—this practical guide helps beginning and intermediate designers become more comfortable with creating and testing prototypes early and often in the process. Author Kathryn McElroy explains various prototyping methods, from fast and dirty to high fidelity and refined, and reveals ways to test your prototypes with users. You’ll gain valuable insights for improving your product, whether it’s a smartphone app or a new electronic gadget. Learn similarities and differences between prototyping for physical and digital products Know what fidelity level is needed for different prototypes Get best practices for prototyping in a variety of mediums, and choose which prototyping software or components to use Learn electronics prototyping basics and resources for getting started Write basic pseudocode and translate it into usable code for Arduino Conduct user tests to gain insights from prototypes

Do you spend a lot of time during the design process wondering what users really need? Do you hate those endless meetings where you argue how the interface should work? Have you ever developed something that later had to be completely redesigned? Paper Prototyping can help. Written by a usability engineer with a long and successful paper prototyping history, this book is a practical, how-to guide that will prepare you to create and test paper prototypes of all kinds of user interfaces. You'll see how to simulate various kinds of interface elements and interactions. You'll learn about the practical aspects of paper prototyping, such as deciding when the technique is appropriate, scheduling the activities, and handling the skepticism of others in your organization. Numerous case studies and images throughout the book show you real world examples of paper prototyping at work. Learn how to use this powerful technique to develop products that are more useful, intuitive, efficient, and pleasing: * Save time and money - solve key problems before implementation begins * Get user feedback early - use it to focus the development process * Communicate better - involve development team members from a variety of disciplines * Be more creative - experiment with many ideas before committing to one*Enables designers to solve design problems before implementation begins *Five case studies provide real world examples of paper prototyping at work *Delves into the specifics of what types of projects paper prototyping is and isn't good for.

Prototyping is a great way to communicate the intent of a design both clearly and effectively. Prototypes help you to flesh out design ideas, test assumptions, and gather real-time feedback from users. With this book, Todd Zaki Warfel shows how prototypes are more than just a design tool by demonstrating how they can help you market a product, gain internal buy-in, and test feasibility with your development team.

Now in its second edition, Prototyping and Modelmaking for Product Design, by practising product development consultant Bjarki Hallgrimsson, is essential reading for both students and design professionals. Prototyping and ModelMaking for Product Design goes behind the scenes to illustrates how prototypes are used to help designers understand problems better, explore more imaginative solutions, investigate human interaction more fully and test functionality so as to de-risk the design process. Following an introduction on the purpose of prototyping, specific materials, tools and techniques are examined in detail, with step-by-step tutorials and industry examples of real and successful products illustrating how prototypes are used to help solve design problems. Workflow is also discussed, using a mixture of hands-on and digital tools. This new edition includes case studies representing technological developments such as prototyping user experience and interactive electronic products, as well as a new expanded section on digital modelmaking tools, including 3D printing and laser cutting. The first chapters of the book explain why prototyping is so important to the design process. The many uses of prototyping will be shown in the context of several comprehensive projects by some of the world's leading design firms. The second part is an introduction to the typical materials used by designers in their prototyping efforts and how to work with them. In all cases, the approach is to use digital and manual tools in a complementary and effective fashion. Tutorials were specifically developed that underline the back and forth of digital and manual ways of working. The emphasis is on the kinds of construction that can be done by the designers themselves. Health and safety is stressed in terms of personal responsibility and awareness. Topics covered include:Definition of prototyping and modelmakingPrototyping as a form of problem solvingModelmakingPhysical and digital prototypesBuidling by hand and using digital technologies

Effective Prototyping for Software Makers is a practical, informative resource that will help anyone—whether or not one has artistic talent, access to special tools, or programming ability—to use good prototyping style, methods, and tools to build prototypes and manage for effective prototyping. This book features a prototyping process with guidelines, templates, and worksheets; overviews and step-by-step guides for nine common prototyping techniques; an introduction with step-by-step guidelines to a variety of prototyping tools that do not require advanced artistic skills; templates and other resources used in the book available on the Web for reuse; clearly-explained concepts and guidelines; and full-color illustrations and examples from a wide variety of prototyping processes, methods, and tools. This book is an ideal resource for usability professionals and interaction designers; software developers, web application designers, web designers, information architects, information and industrial designers. * A prototyping process with guidelines, templates, and worksheets;* Overviews and step-by-step guides for 9 common prototyping techniques;* An introduction with step-by-step guidelines to a variety of prototyping tools that do not require advanced artistic skills;* Templates and other resources used in the book available on the Web for reuse;* Clearly-explained concepts and guidelines;* Full-color illustrations, and examples from a wide variety of prototyping processes, methods, and tools. * www.mkp.com/prototyping

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

From inside Google Ventures, a unique five-day process for solving tough problems, proven at thousands of companies in mobile, e-commerce, healthcare, finance, and more. Entrepreneurs and leaders face big questions every day: What’s the most important place to focus your effort, and how do you start? What will your idea look like in real life? How many meetings and discussions does it take before you can be sure you have the right solution? Now there’s a surefire way to answer these important questions: the Design Sprint, created at Google by Jake Knapp. This method is like fast-forwarding into the future, so you can see how customers react before you invest all the time and expense of creating your new product, service, or campaign. In a Design Sprint, you take a small team, clear your schedules for a week, and rapidly progress from problem, to prototype, to tested solution using the step-by-step five-day process in this book. A practical guide to answering critical business questions, Sprint is a book for teams of any size, from small startups to Fortune 100s, from teachers to nonprofits. It can replace the old office defaults with a smarter, more respectful, and more effective way of solving problems that brings out the best contributions of everyone on the team—and helps you spend your time on work that really matters.

The first overview of how new digital design and fabrication techniques offer new possibilities for prototyping in architecture A new paperback overview of how digital design and fabrication techniques offer ground-breaking possibilities for prototyping in architecture. Prototyping is an essential part of designers’ repertoires, allowing them to test their projects from structural, aesthetic, and technical standpoints. Prototyping for Architects examines how architects are combining new digital design and fabrication technologies with traditional hands-on building techniques to gain more insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their designs. Beginning with an introduction charting the rise of prototyping in design history, this cutting-edge volume for students and professionals presents an extensive range of prototyping techniques, followed by a selection of 30 projects by leading contemporary international architects. Jane and Mark Burry explain how prototyping at a miniature scale helps communicate complex spatial ideas; how prototyping empowers the architect-designer to test and prove a building’s feasibility; and how additive (3D printing) or subtractive (robotic milling) prototyping can lead to exciting new design possibilities. A reference section, which includes a glossary of technical terms, offers further information and clarification. Prototyping is an essential part of designers’ repertoires, allowing them to test their projects from structural, aesthetic, and technical standpoints. This new paperback edition of Prototyping for Architects examines how architects are combining new digital design and fabrication technologies with traditional, hands-on building techniques to gain more insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their designs. Beginning with an introduction charting the rise of prototyping in design history, this cutting-edge volume for students and professionals presents an extensive range of prototyping techniques, followed by a selection of thirty projects by leading contemporary international architects. Authors Jane and Mark Burry explain how prototyping on a miniature scale helps communicate complex spatial ideas, how prototyping empowers the architect-designer to test and prove a building’s feasibility, and how additive (3-D printing) or subtractive (robotic milling) prototyping can lead to exciting new design possibilities. A reference section, which includes a glossary of technical terms, offers further information and clarification.

Fields of study progress not by understanding more about what already exists, although that is a useful step, but by making guesses about possible better futures. The guesses consist of small forays into those futures, using strategies that are variously called learning through making, research through design, or more simply: prototyping. While traditionally associated primarily with industrial design, and more recently with software development, prototyping is now used as an important tool in areas ranging from materials engineering to landscape architecture to the digital humanities. This book collects current theories and methods of prototyping across a dozen disciplines and illustrates them through case studies of actual projects, whether in industry or the classroom. Prototyping Across the Disciplines provides context, a theoretical framework, and a set of methodologies for interdisciplinary collaboration in design. Each chapter offers a different disciplinary perspective on prototyping and provides a case study as a point of comparison for identifying commonalities and divergences in current practices. In examining the central role of prototyping in design research, this edited collection demonstrates theoretical and methodological transferability across disciplines not typically thought to be related, including post-human design, theatre, tabletop game design, landscape architecture, and arts entrepreneurship.

Science fiction is the playground of the imagination. If you are interested in science or fascinated with the future then science fiction is where you explore new ideas and let your dreams and nightmares duke it out on the safety of the page or screen. But what if we could use science fiction to do more than that? What if we could use science fiction based on science fact to not only imagine our future but develop new technologies and products? What if we could use stories, movies and comics as a kind of tool to explore the real world implications and uses of future technologies today? Science Fiction Prototyping is a practical guide to using fiction as a way to imagine our future in a whole new way. Filled with history, real world examples and conversations with experts like best selling science fiction author Cory Doctorow, senior editor at Dark Horse Comics Chris Warner and Hollywood science expert Sidney Perkowitz, Science Fiction Prototyping will give you the tools you need to begin designing the future with science fiction. The future is Brian David Johnson’s business. As a futurist at Intel Corporation, his charter is to develop an actionable vision for computing in 2021. His work is called “future casting”—using ethnographic field studies, technology research, trend data, and even science fiction to create a pragmatic vision of consumers and computing. Johnson has been pioneering development in artificial intelligence, robotics, and reinventing TV. He speaks and writes extensively about future technologies in articles and scientific papers as well as science fiction short stories and novels (Fake Plastic Love and Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment, Computing and the Devices We Love). He has directed two feature films and is an illustrator and commissioned painter. Table of Contents: Preface / Foreword / Epilogue / Dedication / Acknowledgments / 1. The Future Is in Your Hands / 2. Religious Robots and Runaway Were-Tigers: A Brief Overview of the Science and the Fiction that Went Into Two SF Prototypes / 3. How to Build Your Own SF Prototype in Five Steps or Less / 4. I, Robot: From Asimov to Doctorow: Exploring Short Fiction as an SF Prototype and a Conversation With Cory Doctorow / 5. The Men in the Moon: Exploring Movies as an SF Prototype and a Conversation with Sidney Perkowitz / 6. Science in the Gutters: Exploring Comics as an SF Prototype and a Conversation With Chris Warner / 7. Making the Future: Now that You Have Developed Your SF Prototype, What’s Next? / 8. Einstein’s Thought Experiments and Asimov’s Second Dream / Appendix A: The SF Prototypes / Notes / Author Biography