Madeline Koul

When developing a product, prototyping is a key step in identifying the product’s features, form, and functionality. During product development, these prototypes are shown to a wide variety of stakeholders, ranging from engineers to marketing professionals to investors. Each type of stakeholder may interpret prototypes differently based on their profession, and therefore, perceive the fidelity of the prototype differently. Previous research suggests that prototypes with a more accurate form are often deemed higher fidelity, while prototypes with higher functionality but less accurate form are often dismissed as lower fidelity. However, these opinions may change based on the professional background of the stakeholder. The fidelity of a prototype can also impact the way in which information is communicated through the prototype, and how the stakeholders are able to give meaningful feedback or input to move the design forward. For this research, we created two hypothetical physical products—a bottle opener and a screwdriver—that each have seven representative prototypes. These prototypes vary in form accuracy, interaction, and functionality, as well as material construction. The intent was to create a wide array of types of prototypes to represent the many nuances created when creating prototypes. We conducted a survey that asked students and professionals from a wide range of backgrounds ranging from design to business to engineering to evaluate the prototypes based on form, funcion, interaction, and overall fidelity in order to discern their interpretation of prototypes. While this research is ongoing, we hypothesize that stakeholders of different backgrounds will evaluate the fidelity differently. For example, design may evaluate refined form models as high fidelity while engineers may evaluate refined functional models as higher fidelity.