Word is you have attended the ‘Evaluating with and for Youth’ webinar. You listened to reflections from speakers, interacted with participants and gathered various learnings. But you’ve also heard a lot about the prototyping workshop that preceded the webinar. If at this point, you are curious what prototyping is and why the workshop was modeled as a prototyping workshop, read on!
As defined by Interaction Design Foundation, ‘‘A prototype is a simple experimental model of a proposed solution used to test or validate ideas, design assumptions and other aspects of its conceptualization quickly and cheaply, so that the designer/s involved can make appropriate refinements or possible changes in direction.’’
Design thinking is actually really more about doing. And as an aspect of design thinking, prototyping was selected to model this workshop because it allowed us to build our thoughts and ideas into tangible forms. With prototyping the end result is not a generation of ideas but a tangible form of that idea.
Very much related to its tangible nature, prototyping is also an experimental process that gives room for those participating, to explore real world solutions on the spot. While also allows participants to think outside the box and focus on bringing conceptual or theoretical ideas to life. This also feeds into building the creative confidence of designers and all those engaged in prototyping.
The other selling point that led us to the choice of a prototyping workshop is the simplicity of prototyping. At the stage of prototyping, there is no no need for a perfectly polished service/product rather prototyping allows us to create quick, simple and rough prototypes that we can take into further testing. The process is also very low cost and risk adverse.
Finally, the main reasons this workshop was shaped as a prototyping one was because prototypes are always up for further learning, iteration and modification. When designing this workshop, we were certain that if the end product was a prototype, it could be taken into action immediately and tested. In addition, the team was certain that the prototypes created would have the potential to be populated and tested elsewhere- contributing directly to the promotion of meaningful youth engagement in AYSRH through the process of Human Centered Design.