Hidden Benefits of Rapid Prototyping

One of the greatest assets in every designer’s diverse toolkit is iterativeprototyping. Iterative prototyping is a design methodology of rapidprototyping, testing, analyzing and refining a product till the required degreeof satisfaction, functionality and safety are reached. It is fascinating howtypically many benefits of the iterative and rapid prototyping technique oftenweren’t planned or intended in the first place.
As expected, much of the value and success of this method comes from gettingcontinuous and repeated feedback from potential end users during the designprocess, but the hidden, and in my opinion greater, value comes from theextraordinary experience for the designer’s client, whether external to thedesign firm or an internal client from another department in a corporatecompany.
Every designer knows that the biggest challenges they face stem from thestruggle to convince their clients about the feasibility of their designs.Clients are nervous about adopting new ideas and the more radical and bold thedesigns are, the more reluctant the clients get. There is a point wheredesigners hit a “prove-it” wall and as hard as they try, looming investment andbusiness risks won’t let them convince the client unless they provide real worldanalysis and data to back up their claims.

Here Is Where Rapid Prototyping Can Help

The near zero lead time of 3D printing when used as a rapid prototypingmethod, enables the designer to iteratively create new prototypes and send themto the end user to get direct feedback. Each iteration creates small amounts ofdata that the designer can send to the client to prove his concept and back uphis idea. Ideally, the designer will incorporate the user’s feedback in thenext iteration and will once again send the user’s new input to the client.This cycle of designing, rapid prototyping, testing and getting feedback willcontinue till the end user is fully happy with the product and the design goalsare reached. The client, on the other hand, while seeing the feedback improveas the end user becomes more and more pleased, can’t help becoming moreconfident about the idea and finally approving the design.
This process enables progressive minded designers to go forward with theirideas and improve them on the go. On the other hand, it provides clients aproof of concept wrapped up in historical data even before the product is evenlaunched. The iterative and short life cycle of this method, made possiblethrough additive manufacturing technology for rapid prototyping, createsfeedback data for analysis from the immediate future, represented by the enduser that then becomes historical data for the next cycle. This way, thedesigner, and the client are able to have a glimpse into the future without thewaste of time and money that is usually accompanied by such ventures.
Formal design education does not focus on the designer-client relationship,although it has a huge impact on probabilities of the success of a particulardesign. It rather just concentrates on the designer-end user relationship. Butto fulfill a designer’s goal of helping businesses to provide superiorexperiences to the end user, the education must concentrate a little bit moreon how designers communicate with their clients, through whom they willactually reach the end user of their designs.