I'm sure that many of you have read Bill Buxton's excellent book Sketching User Experiences. In it he uses bicycle design as an example of good sketching practice, so when I stumbled upon this short video of a new Trek bike prototype Buxton's book immediately sprang to mind (it also allows me to indulge my obsession with bikes in all forms).
If you watch the video you'll see that the new Trek Madone prototype is a fully ridable bike frame. The designers and engineers actually ride the frame while they're designing it. This allows them to work out the kinks and make sure it has the desired characteristics.
How often do we, as UX designers, do that level of prototyping? Sometimes we can't because of time, budget, or any of a number of reasons, but are we truly getting the most out of our designs if we don't get a chance to put them through their paces in a realistic usage scenario? This is markedly different than testing the final product at the end of the release cycle. Testing a prototype at this level gives you more freedom as you design to make both small tweaks and fundamental changes.
One thing to take form the Trek example is that they build their prototype using the same materials as the final product. If you're working in the software world that could mean HTML, Flash/Flex, iPhone dev, and many more. When a bike designer at Trek wants to take things to this level the partner with an engineer and continue as a team. That's not always possible for us, but should probably be an ideal we strive for. This level of cooperation between designers and developers will lead to a better product, and a more cohesive team.
Posted in Methods on August 19, 2009
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