THE VALUE OF PROTOTYPES IN THE EARLY DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Prototypes are considered to be efficient tools in engineering design as they help to reveal flaws in ideas and concepts, highlighting problems to be solved. Limited research has been conducted in detail about prototyping activities that have contributed to the increase of designers' ideas in the design process. This study explores the use of prototypes to generate more ideas compared to the designers that were not involve with prototypes in design process. It also investigates how prototypes enhance designers' idea by involving 45 participants in three separate groups in early ideation and concept development process. The aim of this paper is to explore the ability of prototyping to produce creative and innovative ideas in the conceptual phase of design process. Results indicated that the group of participants who were involved with prototypes in their design process produced more amount of ideas compared to the group who did not use it. It also shows prototypes helps designers to generate more creative and innovative ideas