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Participatory Prototyping

A guide for collaborating with community members during the prototype testing & learning process.

Stats

Suggested Time

45 Minutes

Level of Difficulty

Moderate

Materials Needed

Tangible set of prototypes, starter testing plan

Participants

Design team, co-designers


Process Phase

Bringing community members (or co-designers) into the process of testing design early ideas and concepts for solutions is called participatory prototyping. Co-designers usually have good insight into who in their community they should test concepts with and how to best engage those people. They’ll also bring their innate understanding of their community’s needs into the testing process, helping to deepen your learning about what will work and why in their specific context.

Steps

  1. Onboard your co-designers to the set of prototypes and what it is you want to learn.
  2. Have the codesigners think of 3 different people who have had (or will have) varying experiences with the service or product you’re testing
  3. Co-create the Prototyping Plan. How will co-designers locate and engage community members to test the prototypes? What questions feel most important to ask?
  4. Before they start prototyping, facilitate a few practice rounds where co-designers can role-play asking questions and taking data, and further familiarize themselves with the testing plan.
  5. Once everyone is aligned on time, process, and location, have co-designers go out into the community to test!
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