Are you sure that’s going to work the way you think? Why we PrototypeLab for clients in a rush.

“If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, a prototype is worth 1,000 meetings” — David Kelly < I love this. And it’s true.

Two challenges have absorbed my team over the last three weeks. Challenge 1, Can an app really help low-tech elderly learn about the things that might help them maintain their living independence? When the project was presented to our design practice I had the natural questions — why an app? Is this the right tool? Challenge 2, how might developers working on global 3D projects experience a self service business model though APIs and custom applications? And how might the organization visualize this business model change? — also many, many questions. > And this is why we prototype.

Lately our design practice has been challenging ourselves to work in short and intensive sprints meeting our clients where they are to accelerate them past doubts — we call this our PrototypeLab and it is how we use human-centered design prototyping and user testing methods and thinking to create low to high fidelity things in 2–3 weeks. These things can be the beginning of an app (like the challenge above), a product site( challenge 2), storyboards to flesh out a new service or process, a physical representation of a product for people to interact with, etc. In essence they are things that can be put in front of people so our clients can learn, adapt, pivot in real time. (I’m talking about full business ideas or platforms — not just UI testing of a small area of functionality — just to clarify). Sometimes those people are end users and other times it is to put it in front of sr. management to get some buy in.

Prototyping and User Testing is something I have always loved doing and that I think design does not always put enough focus on in comparison to the often ‘sexier’ discovery and ideation at the early phases of design. For me, there is something magical about having your expectations crushed and being sent on the right direction as the result of a simple human interaction with an imperfect representation of what you are thinking about. It is design truth.

What we are doing is really a business side solution to a constant client challenge — knowing what to do and getting unstuck when you’re not totally sure what makes sense. This past two to three weeks has our design practice working on PrototypeLabs for ‘Elderly Independent Living’ and ‘Self Service for Developers’ (vastly divergent focuses, kind of).

Guiding our approach to this are a few key things;

• Meet clients where they are/ It’s tempting to try and talk to clients about taking a step back, doing more discovery research. I do it, it’s our responsibility to ask and great design is built upon it. But if they come to us with a ‘thing’ already and we know they have pressures to deliver we can’t let perfection of process be the enemy of progress in business. After all, clients often have done upfront work to narrow their opportunity which we can’t dismiss and if you can get them through a prototype they are more likely to listen when you talk about discovery research.
• Talk Business, Not Design/ our clients are curious about the design process. Some know what it is but are fuzzy on application. But, under pressure to deliver in the market of ‘right f$%king now’, they want to know what it can do for them, not how it works. So when we talk to them about what we propose, we put it in the language of business, outcomes, KPI’s, impact on business, the decision making process, time to market. We resist that designer's urge to talk about process, mindsets, methods. We just use it in the context of their business framework to get things done.
• Challenge the project as giving/ clients come with what they think you’re trying to do. We always challenge this and work hard to make sure that the prototype is focused on what is actually going to make a difference. It can be a little hard to slow down the moving train of expectations and ask tons of questions but done right you can get to the heart of the business challenge in a 2 hour initial session. This can feel like tough love but smart clients understand that’s what they pay us for.
• Involve client stakeholders (if it makes sense)/ this doesn’t always happen or even work. But recently we have had incredible results having a client team join us for 3 days to work hand-in-hand on the early forming of the prototype. Clients who get what a prototype is can bring a ton of perspective that is harder to get in briefings and meetings. Getting into a room with post-it notes (a strange feeling after 2+ years online) has a kinetic, rapid feedback power to it.
• Focus & go fast/ If a prototype is going to try and tackle everything it’s usually not going to work. We narrow down to the key assumptions that are critical to success and start there so we can get user tested feedback fast and then pivot to the next test. So we break up larger asks into focused two to 3 weeks sprints at max (sometimes it can even be 1 week) — anything beyond that is a ‘project’ and projects tend to get more cooks in the kitchen than you need and inevitably get slowed down. Broken into rapid sprints, our PrototypeLab’s have a better chance of influencing decisions earlier when less is at risk and there is still chance for change. After all, in a light speed world great decisions made too late are bad decisions.

Yes, I love the full projects where we start with deep empathy with users, take the time to ground the effort in the overall business, etc. Journey maps, blueprints — like sugar for me. But we live in a chaotic world where not all clients come ready for everything. They have to live with the timeframes set for them, are juggling multiple other things and have business school blinders on. But they want what we want — something better and designers need to get them there with quick and powerful interventions like these. It is how we prove our worth. We start another PrototypeLab this week.