Novice designers' use of partitioning strategies to navigate the prototyping process

Abstract

Prototypes can be used to create value in all phases of the product development process. Prototyping strategies that determine how prototypes are developed should therefore be considered for the prototyping process as a whole. In this paper, we analyse how partitioning strategies were used by ten novice design teams to navigate their prototyping processes during a three-week mechatronic development project. Using the ‘ProtoMapping’ method, their prototyping strategies were visualized and five different types of strategies identified. Four of the ten teams formally planned how to divide their product into modules that could be prototyped in parallel or planned when to integrate prototypes to test the full product. Still, the ProtoMaps showed that most of the teams used some partitioning strategies during their project even when they did not formally decide to do so. Novice designers should be supported in making such strategies for the prototyping process deliberately. Therefore, prototyping tools should be expanded to support not only individual prototyping activities but also the prototyping process.