Page 220 - DNBI_A01.QXD

1975 : STEP THREE – EVALUATING AND SELECTING IDEAS

the foundation of CarsDirect.com.

It is significant that a large measure of the success of Internet Securities,
Inc., showcased in the case study at the end of the chapter, stems from
the company’s decision to move rapidly into the financial information
sector with an off-the-shelf IT solution rather than invest cost and time
in the development of a higher-specification bespoke package.

expectation management It is important to avoid undoing the

good you can achieve with prospective customers by forgetting to
manage their expectations. If you are not clear with your prospects
about the purpose and scope of the prototype, misunderstandings will
arise. Either they will criticise the fit and finish of a rough-cut prototype
which was created only to demonstrate practical usability, or they will
assume that the conversion of the prototypes into a finished product is
a ‘just job’.

Only if you manage expectations appropriately can you be sure to
receive the full benefits from prototyping.

prototypes and divergent thinking The creation of

prototypes is not restricted to left-brain thinking – far from it. Divergent
thinking is as important at the prototyping stage as at any other step in
the idea development process. Where can you obtain cheap, if not free,
components to use in a mock-up? Where could you easily simulate the
product in use?

Tom Kelley reports how an IDEO design team wanted to test whether its
new design of goggles for snowboarders would remain fog-free in
freezing conditions. Baking in the heat of the Californian summer, they
were unable to secure the funds from the clients to fly down to New
Zealand, where it was winter. Instead, the team brainstormed out the
idea of trialling the goggles in the industrial-sized freezer of a local
family-run ice-cream factory. Meanwhile, IDEO legend also has it that
part of a key prototype for the first Apple mouse was a $2 butter dish
bought from a discount store.149

Best-practice divergent thinking might also lead you to apply the
technique of reversals to prototyping – perhaps you should turn
yourself into a prototype customer.