After solidifying our idea during the ideation phase, my team was confident to move on to prototyping and see our vision actually come to life! One of the first decisions we had to make was what type of prototype to create. Though our immediate idea for our graduate staycation subscription box was to create a physical box, we decided to stray away from this. Having a box with sample items in it would be fun, but we didn’t think it would explain the buying process or any potential issues for consumers. By reflecting back on the article about low-fidelity prototyping, we remembered that the purpose of our creation was to identify problems and high-level concepts, not just present something that was aesthetically pleasing. So, we decided to create a website to showcase our subscription box, named the R&R box, and take a consumer through exactly what the process would be like – from going on the website to getting their box of goodies on their doorstep. Within our website, we decided to have a “What’s in the Box?” page, to satisfy our original desire to prototype what was in a sample box.
One thing that surprised me about prototyping was how many details and issues arose that I had never considered during the ideation stage. From customization to pricing, prototyping forced my group and I to confront every major hole in our plan head on and resolve them effectively. I definitely see the benefit of low-fidelity prototyping in this regard – making tweaks to our website and iterating our prototype was easy and cost nothing. If we had make a high-fidelity prototype, we would have realized all the issues after spending a lot of resources and time on it.
Something my team struggled with was deciding what level of detail to put into the prototype. Since it’s a low-fidelity prototype, we knew that we didn’t need to make it perfect – but we were definitely tempted to. Having a website format, it was easy to get caught up in the details – finding the perfect pictures, changing fonts, and just making it aesthetically pleasing in general. We had to remember that as we move towards conducting a focus group session, we are really trying to get feedback on the process (i.e. Does the payment system make sense? Do our consumers feel like the survey will adequately customize their box?). As enticing as a “perfect” prototype is, it’s not necessary and it’s not what low-fidelity prototyping is about. At the end of the day, I think we found the perfect balance between creating a prototype that we’re proud of and that looks great, while not getting *too* caught up in the details.
My team still has a few logistical questions about our prototype, so I’m excited to hear what our focus group has to say about the R&R box!