Design Kit: Prototyping

Class 3 Readings
Field Test Planning
By taking some time to make a plan before heading into the field, you give yourself the best
chance to craft productive field tests.

Thinking ahead about the spaces, people, processes, and tools you might need will give you a
better picture of how your idea could really work and help you shape your solution further into
reality.

Why Field-Test?
After you make your idea tangible, it’s time to take it out into the real world to get feedback.
Getting in-context input from the people you’re designing for lets you know what’s working for
them and what isn’t.

After making and breaking your ideas in

the safety of early prototyping and feedback sessions with your design team and perhaps some
close friends, you’ll need to push your concepts out into the real world to fully test and grow
their potential. Field-testing forces us to observe and learn directly from the people we are
designing for, in the context in which they live and work. There is no greater test of the
desirability and potential feasibility of an idea than taking it more deeply into the world you are
looking to change. Use field-testing not just to see if your idea might make it out of the nest, but
to better understand the people and ecosystem you’re designing for so your ideas truly fly.
Understanding Context
To understand how your idea might fit into people’s lives, you’ll need to take it out and test it in
their everyday world.

What is a Context?

When we say context, we’re thinking about everything needed to place the concept into the real
world. This may include the physical space, realities of the surrounding community, relevant
demographics, time of day, pacing of surrounding activities, and anything else that may affect
the experience of the people you’re designing for. All of these pieces should be considered as
you field-test in order to learn the most from your prototype.

Selecting a Location

You may have very specific requirements in mind when it comes to the implementation of your
idea, or already know exactly where it will be implemented. But sometimes the earlier stages of
your prototyping might need to be more flexible. You’ll start off by testing your idea in a
location that shares similar characteristics, or reaches the same target audience as your intended
context. Characteristics to think about when selecting a test location may include: How busy or
populated is the space? What type of person frequents it? What is the space used for?

For example, if your final idea is a brick-and- mortar shop open to the public, then a good initial
place to start testing your ideas if you don’t have access to a store might be a busy marketplace.
On the other hand, if your idea is an in-home solution, you might consider recruiting families in
the community to test the idea for a week in their houses.

Do your best to get as real as possible as soon as possible, while still leaving room to explore and
shift as you learn more in context.

When developing a birthing kit for safer, at-home childbirth deliveries in India, the team tested
kits and messaging options in rural and semi-rural contexts—as those were the intended
audiences.
Learning Loop
As you take your prototypes into the world and learn from how real people respond, you’ll
synthesize and integrate your findings into new, better versions of your concept. We call this
iterative approach a ‘learning loop.’

The learning loop occurs between ideation and implementation.

Plan  Make  Test  Learn  Integrate  Plan

The learning loop begins with the initial plan to test your idea. You then build it out and make it
real so you can test it.

When you first start testing your idea in context, you’ll need to be open and willing to embrace
both positive and negative feedback with open arms. Sometimes it’s hard to hear and accept
negative feedback on something that you’ve invested your time and energy in, but remember—
it’s this very feedback that you’ll learn from to make your idea stronger.

Prioritize theses insights and integrate them into your prototyping to try again.

Through iterations of the learning loop, your design team will build the design muscles to
continuously inform, evolve, and improve your idea.
Planning Your Field Tests
Before you head out into the real world with your prototype, it will be helpful to pause and do
some planning first. Planning ahead will ensure that you’re as prepared as you can be, so that
when you’re actually in the field and prototyping you can concentrate less on the logistics and
more on the learning.

Questions to Consider:

PEOPLE

• Who will we need and what are their roles?

• What benefits might this idea provide to the people we’re looking to engage and other
supporting players?
• Who needs to know we’re trying this?

TOOLS

• What tools, materials, or resources might we need in order to bring our prototype to life?

People

When you’re thinking through the people who will be involved in your concept, recognize that
there are both direct and indirect roles.

A person who plays a direct role interacts directly with the customer. Someone with an indirect
role serves to make things run smoothly in the background. For example, in the case of a patient
in an emergency room, the doctor and the triage nurse play direct roles with the patient, whereas
the bandage supplier and the hospital adminstrator generally play indirect roles.

For this class, and in general for early proto- types, focus on prototyping direct roles, as they
have a clear impact on the core experience of the person you are designing for. The indirect roles
can be figured out as you continue to add detail and refine your concept.

Tools

In order to bring your prototype to life, you’ll likely need to bring a few tools with you—first
and foremost, those directly related to your prototype. If your solution is a product, then you’ll
need to bring your physical prototype with you. If it’s a service, then don’t forget uniforms,
name tags, or other props to help clarify any roles and related processes you are testing. What
other tools might be useful? Plan ahead and accommodate any potential iterations or variations
by bringing along extra materials.
Planning Your Field Tests
Questions to Consider:

SPACE

• What about the actual physical space is key to testing our prototype?
• What existing spaces might we be able to leverage? Do they need to be modified?
• What new spaces might we need to create?
• Where might we prototype to learn in a more realistic context?

PROCESS

• What are the moments and interactions we hope to test?

• How will we be testing those moments?
• What needs to happen behind the scenes?
• What are the key opportunities to delight and surprise along
the journey?

Space

Now that you’ve picked the location, you’ll want to consider how the physical space needs to be
set up in order to facilitate the testing
of your prototype. Rather than building your own spatial elements, see if there are any existing
places or pieces that you can leverage. For example, can you use chairs and tables to mock up the
space in different ways? If you do use an existing space, you may need to make modifications so
that the space works for the purposes of your prototype. What might you need to build anew?

When it comes to the size of your space, explore the possibility of different variations on
your prototype. What happens if you make
it bigger or smaller? Try playing around with spacial elements to test the effect of different
environments overall.

Process

Sketching out a Journey Map or Storyboard will prepare you to more thoughtfully test
the processes related to your prototype. If you haven’t tried these exercises yet, take a look back
at the Class 2 Readings about how to Think to Build (p. 6). They will help you think about the
steps that someone might go through as they experience your idea.

It will also be helpful to review the Class 2 Readings on how to Determine What to Prototype (p.
7). If you’ve defined the questions you’re trying to answer and the things you’re trying to learn
through your prototype, then you can focus on the critical moments and interactions that you
hope to test. Maybe it’s not the entire interaction that you need to get answers about, but only
one small piece—like what motivates people to sign up.
In the same way that we identified the direct and indirect roles involved, look to clarify and
coordinate those processes that a customer might see and what might need to happen in the
background.
What Does It Mean to Include People?
As you begin testing your prototype in-context and ask for feedback from real users, remember
to be respectful and responsible in your approach. Stay attuned to how people are feeling and
what they need to understand to learn the most.

Setting Clear Expectations

The minute you bring your ideas out into

the real world, you’ll need to start thinking about what field-testing means to the people that your
prototype affects. This could be the people who are directly experiencing your prototype or other
important actors in the community who may be influenced indirectly. By thinking through these
potential issues before heading out into the field, you can be sure to take the right steps to
mitigate potential risks. As human-centered designers, our first responsibility is to be respectful
of the people we’re designing for and others that our ideas might affect.

When designing for low-income communities, it is important to set the right expectations.
Because you need honest feedback to test and evolve your solutions, you make your idea feel as
real as possible to the person you’re testing your idea with. Yet, you also want to be transparent
with participants about the possibility that this solution may or may not be implemented so as not
to raise hopes in an unrealistic manner.

Each project and each community warrants its own considerations. But a good rule of thumb is
to never make undue promises that you and your team can’t keep.

When testing solar light options in rural India, the team was careful to inform the community
that they were still in the process of building the product and it was not yet available to buy
afterwards.

Community Sensitization

Sometimes, it’s not just the people you’re testing your idea with that you need to plan
for, but also other folks in the community. Are there local leaders or governing bodies who may
react negatively if they are not brought into the conversation beforehand? Understanding
the dynamics of the community before you head out into the field will help to manage
and plan for the risk of this happening. Who are the influencers in the community? Who
are the decision-makers? Who are the creative innovators who might bring new ideas to
the table?

Consider quickly mapping out the community dynamics to make sure you’re covering them all.
If your design team is not from the area, it will be helpful to team up with a local partner or gain
buy-in from a local leader who can help you navigate these social waters. Not understanding the
community dynamics before testing your prototype can be a detriment not only to the
prototyping process, but in the long run, it can also hinder the success of your solution.
Risk Mitigation

Once you’ve thought through how your prototyping might work both directly with
the people you’re testing your idea with and the community more broadly, you’ll be able
to assess and mitigate for potential risks. When it comes to engaging certain players in the
community, take these necessary steps beforehand, if possible. Then take note of any parts of the
prototype testing process that could become potential risks if they aren’t navigated carefully
during field-testing. You’ll want to pause regularly and create some checkpoints with your
design team during the testing process to make sure you’re dealing with these in a respectful and
constructive manner.
Additional Resources
Making it Real

Peek into adapting prototype kits for small and large scale ideas.

http://bit.ly/Making_It_Real

‘Live Labs’: Prototyping Environments to Measure Customer Experience

Learn non-traditional measures of success in physical environments.

http://bit.ly/Live_Labs

Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration

Create more collaborative environments for your own teams.

http://bit.ly/Make_Space

SketchUp

This easy to use, free tool can help you 3D model physical designs.

http://www.sketchup.com/

‘Butaro Hospital’ by MASS Design Group

Get inspired by well-designed spaces to improve and save lives.

http://bit.ly/MASS_Design
The Diva Centre
Designing reproductive health services for youth with Marie Stopes International Zambia.
Setting the scene and building the space for girls to get contraceptive services.

“The Diva Centre was so friendly. It’s where I could open up... I felt free to tell my story.”

—Cathy, 18, Diva Client, mother at age 14, and now Peer Connector

DIVA CENTRE CLINIC

To understand the kinds of tools and interactions it might take to get teenage girls into an MSI
clinic, the IDEO.org design team then had to attend to the clinic itself.

As a first stab, the team prototyped a pop-up nail salon as a way to start the conversation about
reproductive health. They rented out
a courtyard, quickly mocked up a sign, and purchased colorful nail polish and popular teen
magazines. It worked—especially with Peer Connectors driving engagement. Girls showed up in
droves. The low-stakes social atmosphere was perfect for starting casual conversation about
reproductive health, and the girl-centric environment put youth at ease. Next up, turning the MSI
clinic into a Diva Centre.

To make the concept come to life, the design team and MSI staff rented a space to transform into
the Diva Centre. They painted the walls bright colors, bought some casual and colorful furniture,
set the waiting room up with lots of teen magazines and nail polish, and placed posters of the
Divine Divas by the entrance. The result was more clubhouse than clinic.

Initially the Diva Centre space allowed adults, but we pivoted as soon as we saw girls turning
away at the sight of grown-ups. In order to make things more youth-friendly, the team set it apart
from the traditional clinic and established a youth-only space. Traditionally, girls had stayed
away out of fear of being seen and because the clinical environment felt sterile and cold. To
encourage all youth to use the clinic’s services, MSI Zambia had to create an environment that
made them feel welcomed and safe.

Creating an environment that felt more like the nail salon than a clinic encouraged teens to use it
as such. They hung out with each other, did their nails, and used the Diva Centre as a casual
space to learn about and access services without pressure or judgment.

This space prototype relied on learnings from the team’s previous prototypes. The Centre was
informed from what we learned from the Divine Divas conversations, which in turn spurred the
Peer Connectors role, which inspired the idea of a teen-only pop-up nail salon.

Not only did youth show up to the Diva Centre, but within the first months, 75% of girls who
visited them accessed reproductive services. Prior to the Centre, MSI Zambia rarely saw youth at
all. But now, the staff reported that girls were over-using the waiting room as a social space. At
times there was barely room to handle the girls there getting services!
Key Takeaways

• The Big Idea: The Diva Centre

• Type of Offering: Environment

• What Is It? A safe and comfortable youth-first space for hanging out, doing nails, and
learning about reproductive health choices and services without pressure or judgment.

• What Inspired It? Youth responded best when surrounded by peers.

• What Did We Want to Learn? Would creating a youth-only space

make girls feel at ease learning about and accessing reproductive health services?