Abstract
Prototyping is a core activity in developing new products, processes, and organisations, to mention a few. This paper describes the prototyping activities of 31 engineering design professionals in a high-technology industrial company, examining the distribution of different types of activities across different phases of development based on thematic interviews. Examining 62 prototyping and testing pathways, we found that most prototyping paths started with the practitioners’ own activities, which was also more likely to lead to paths with more prototyping steps than if the first prototyping activity took place with a stakeholder. Overall, the paths were short, indicating a lack of iteration. Both internal and external stakeholders were involved in collaborative prototyping. This collaboration was enabled by personal and unit-level relationships and different stakeholders were involved in different phases of development. Taken together, our results suggest that practitioner attention in prototyping may focus on latter development phases and demonstrate less iteration than what literature might suggest, with opportunities for prototyping highly dependent on personal networks in the high-technology context in the absence of flexible prototyping budgets.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | 2nd Design Factory Research Conference |
Subtitle of host publication | Contributions for 'Designing for Multiplicity', October 5th - 6th 2023 |
Publisher | Aalto-yliopisto |
Pages | 56-59 |
Number of pages | 4 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 978-952-64-9638-2 |
Publication status | Published - 2023 |
MoE publication type | A4 Conference publication |
Event | Design Factory Global Network Research Conference - Ankara, Türkiye Duration: 5 Oct 2023 → 6 Oct 2023 Conference number: 2 |
Conference
Conference | Design Factory Global Network Research Conference |
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Abbreviated title | DFGN |
Country/Territory | Türkiye |
City | Ankara |
Period | 05/10/2023 → 06/10/2023 |
Keywords
- prototyping
- collaboration
- idea advancement