Rapid Prototyping

Challenge:

To enable 500 ‘future leaders’ from a major UK finance organisation to develop concepts for five new mobile apps in 24 hours.

Solution:

Working with the 500 participants simultaneously, we provided a rapid prototyping approach to respond to this challenge.

Rapid prototyping prevents this state of grid-lock by accelerating the design cycle time in order that prototypes can be completed within days or hours, rather than taking several weeks. Through this iterative process, multiple testing can be performed on the design at a low cost and corrections to a product can be identified earlier in the process, thereby extending product lifetime and decreasing costly mistakes. This process is also an effective communication tool as all areas of the design team, from engineering to marketing, are able to share and apply knowledge consistently.

The process began with the teams working up initial sketch ideas with a team of Ludic’s visual scribes. The best ideas were then taken forward for further development. Working with a team of interaction designers based around the world we produced screen designs and prototype applications ‘overnight’ for the team to assess and iterate the following morning.

Bringing an idea to life is often complex, challenging and costly. The complexity of the challenge can become a barrier to innovation and change as the design process is not rapid or agile enough to fully realise and communicate the idea. In this state of grid-lock, design cycles and resources become expensive commodities, the flow of innovation stops and opportunities are lost. Rapid prototyping techniques accelerate the design cycle, save money and enable innovation.