Provocative prototyping

As more organisations start utilising the tools Design Thinking provides we are encouraged to communicate our ideas fast, dirty and iteratively, no matter how speculative they may be.

As this practice is becoming established it is becoming increasingly important we as designers understand the principles of how to communicate these speculative ideas within our own messy front-end processes so that we don’t miss the provocative outliers that so often spark moments of innovation.

Let’s get this part out of the way: the future is based in the present so there’s no excuse not to prototype — if it doesn’t exist yet then the least you should do is pretend it does. Prototypes should feel like placing a piece of theatre on the table; we know it’s not real, they know it’s not real but there’s conversation, there’s debate and maybe even a narrative is being challenged. This is why I believe that early on in the front-end of our design approach we should prototype provocatively in order to explore solutions on a wider scale.

The importance of this kind of prototyping does not lie in the quality of the prototype but in the user’s ability to understand how to interact with and if they are able to replicate the experience of a speculative concept. The main difference from standard prototyping is that these speculative prototypes are not defined as problem-solving but as learning tools to discover new solution spaces before the problem has even been defined.

These provocative prototypes don’t leave impressions on quality or style, they cause the conversations that lead to the “What if..?” moments.

By establishing these provocative prototypes in scenarios of the future we are able to use them across co-design workshops, design research studies or even as statements of intent. Each of these examples has their own impact on the culture or approach teams are able to utilise. As design is becoming messier and faster, there is less time to explore big ideas at scale, this kind of provocative prototyping provides the perfect method to quickly explore potential disruptive solution spaces we would otherwise miss.

Thanks for reading — I’m currently studying Industrial Design at Loughborough University, I have previously worked as a UX designer at Bosch Power Tools and IBM. Feel free to get in touch or check out my website.

Provocative prototyping

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