It’s easy to think up of a design. But how do you test it? As with all products, the three factors of speed, cost, and quality have a mutually exclusive relationship. As they say:
“You can have it fast and good, but it won’t be cheap.”
“You can have it good and cheap, but it won’t be fast.”
“You can have it fast and cheap, but it won’t be good.”
For testing design solutions, we want our products to be only good enough to prove our concept. Therefore, we strive to make our prototypes fast and cheap. But it is always a jarring step to go from the drawing board to trying to materialize some semblance of the desired product.
I enjoyed watching the wheelchair and forearm groups start their prototyping processes. The forearm group split into two subgroups to focus on two different designs: a mechanical rotation device, and an electronic accelerometer device. In the very first day, the mechanical subgroup created a cardboard prototype of one of their designs. But the prototype didn’t last long – not because it wasn’t good enough, but because half-way through they decided they wanted to change the design. In this case, it was beneficial that the team avoided the pitfall of making their first prototype “too good.” The wheelchair group also had a very important start to their prototyping process: discovering an idea didn’t work. On paper, the team was convinced that their “piston” idea would be an effective design, but once they constructed a make-shift proof of concept, it became clear that the piston design did not work in the way they thought it did. In the end, the wheelchair group went back to the drawing board to generate more ideas. For both groups, the prototyping process was very successful!