Week 4 - Types of Prototypes

This week's contact session was all about different types of prototypes. The very first slide summed up the talking points quite well by listing a variety of different types of prototypes. After going over them and discussing a little about what each of them means, we went to work to answer a couple of questions on the topic of a car. Namely how would we list, and sort the functional components of a car and how relevant they are to driving and driving behaviour.

We were then asked to design and describe a horizontal, vertical and diagonal prototype for an alarm clock application. The horizontal prototype is fairly straightforward because it only has to be a general overview of the application. There doesn't have to be anything functional or anything designed in great detail. This is where a low-fidelity prototype or paper prototype would be ideal. It would allow for a great range of screens and layouts to be trialled with little waste.

The vertical prototype would require a little more work as it is supposed to be more detailed but with less range. So for a vertical prototype I would definitely create a more detailed mockup and then likely create a functioning prototype to test the effectiveness of a particular key feature. This is how we determine the success of certain aspects of the design and functionality.

Lastly a diagonal prototype would simply be a combination of the two. This would simply be a more refined, polished and functional version of the app that could be tested or really looked into as a viable option.