Make Prototyping Part of Your Personal Practice
Whether you’re a designer creating a new product, a chef testing a new recipe, or an entrepreneur starting a new business, a prototype is a tool that helps you uncover what your idea might be missing and provides hints about what to do next.
As part of a research prototype for writing my book This Is a Prototype, I asked several of the same questions about prototyping to people I know, admire, wondered about, or otherwise respect. The intent of the experiment is to better understand what prototyping means to a wide orbit of professionals.
Eric Parker, founder and president of theClubhou.se, explained how his view of prototyping has expanded over the years. His expansion was most likely organic, since theClubhou.se defines itself as many things — a coworking space, a makerspace, a code school, a startup accelerator, a prototyping lab, a mentorship network, an organizer of events, and a think tank.
Eric described how expectations of prototyping and, in turn, his own prototyping process, have evolved since he branched out to another industry a decade ago:
If you break the word “prototype” down, it’s an entirely accurate way to express a first or early attempt. Over time, though, it feels like expectations around prototypes have advanced to a level that hinders experimentation around new ideas and solutions. I find in my own work that people today expect a level of craft around prototypes, such that my very initial work has become primarily for myself and a few key trusted people around me. In fact, I would argue that most prototypes we see in public are probably at version two or three of refining the core idea.
My own professional life is centered around constantly iterative prototyping towards something that is as close to perfect as possible. Beginning as an architect, I was trained to lay out broad conceptual gestures and incrementally ‘work up’ to more and more detail:
Conceptual Design > Schematic Design > Design Development > Contract Drawings
Over the last 10 years in nonprofit development, I’ve followed a similar process, but now it is broken up more like:
Concept > Pitch > Adapt > Pilot > Measure > Document > Repeat
Eric’s point about his initial work in the prototyping process shifting toward being primarily for himself is important to note, because it underscores the pressure prototypers (at least, public ones) face in feeling they have to be “correct” in their work. Eric uses the early phase of his work to stick with his curiosity and connect early ideas to questions he wants to learn from, in order to move forward, which likely leads to better long-term results for him. It’s also fascinating to hear how he has tweaked his own process. In my book, I assert that evaluating your prototype means focusing on your own behaviors as much as it does creating a good prototype from the start. You must evolve and develop your skills for designing experiences and evaluating them. Paying close attention to your process of prototyping, including your own behaviors and patterns, is critical to getting authentic results, whether your work is self-focused or in the service of others.
In terms of prototyping in the service of others, Eric shared another illuminating example:
I’m currently about 3 years into iteration for an effort called Make Startups. The core idea is that we can use a training and assessment model to help financial institutions automate access to capital for disadvantaged entrepreneurs, and that this model will allow entrepreneur support organizations across the country to receive support from America’s workforce development system.
The initial pitch made total sense. We received grants to prototype solutions in Colorado and Georgia. In testing, we quickly discovered that at a macro level, financial institutions and state governments understood the challenge and were receptive to the solution. The real difficulty became translating the work at a local level. At the local level, conceptual momentum met administrative barriers. We found that, while the workforce system allows entrepreneurial skills training, performance metrics within the system are geared towards job placement in existing industries. We fought against the obvious roadblocks for 9 months because unfortunately we had our own grant metrics that relied on the prototype’s success.
This led to developing policy papers and working in DC to advocate for amendments to legislation and a three-year Department of Labor study to inform appropriate performance metrics for entrepreneurship. Over the course of this, I’ve lost count of the number of prototypes around the experiences of entrepreneurs, support organizations, financial institutions, and policy makers. I just know that adhering to a vision and having constant tactical flexibility informed by measuring the success of prototypes is what has taken me from architect to hackerspace founder to nonprofit leader to policy advocate (so far).
Prototyping is a primary tactic for designers, but as Eric’s story illustrates, it also shows up in fields you’d never associate with the word. His message of adhering to a vision but remaining flexible is one anyone who undertakes the testing of an idea should heed. It also highlights the importance of carefully identifying your objectives when you begin to prototype — so that you have a path to follow. I advise people starting a prototype to carefully examine their intent and to consider whether they are prototyping based on utility or motivation. Your initial thoughtful consideration for the type of prototype you want to use will help give you the tactical flexibility that Eric highlights as being so imperative to a project’s long-term success.
Still, no matter how well you plan your process, you must be confident enough to learn from failure, as Eric points out:
There ultimately is no difference between sharing a sketch of a building and telling a joke on open mic night. They both involve the confidence to be vulnerable in sharing an idea that could likely fail in order to hone it to a point where it can resonate broadly and allow the world to see something in the same way that you do. I’m so much more comfortable with failure now than I was early in my career.
I consider that part of a practice of prototyping to fail well. The value and ultimate success of failing with a prototype comes from transforming an early outcome into learning. In every prototype, it’s equally important to understand both what you learned and how you learned it.
You can explore and engage more of Eric’s work at:
This is modified content from my LinkedIn newsletter, Prototyped: Exploring new ideas through prototyping & design, originally published Sept. 21, 2022.
Explore Eric’s detailed thoughts on prototyping in this expanded Q&A.
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