As design work begins and progresses, the steps of the process merge, overlap, and fold back on each other. Specifications change, forms are rearranged and analysis is reconsidered -- that's if you're doing it right!

Good designers employ multiple methods for helping themselves and a team think about the requirements for a project, the possible forms it might take, and the trade-offs between goals and constraints.

Form is kept fluid until the process has developed enough points of certainty that effort can be applied to more refined representations ... typically, products go through some or all of these phases:

• conceptual prototype ...rough depiction sufficient for understanding the structure & general form - may be paper and may not depict any details of the form; may be polished but entirely hypothetical!
• rapid prototype ... representation of sufficient refinement to be tested with potential audience members; the degree of refinement varies depending on what the designers want to use the prototype to test - must represent the experiential elements of the product authentically
• rough implementation (draft) ... usually created in the final development tools but open to major changes in structure and form
• testable version... close to final and ready for technical testing to discover bugs
• final version ... tested and ready to ship

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last update 18 April 1999 ... questions and suggestions to eboling@indiana.edu
Instructional Systems Technology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana