Novice designers' use of prototypes in engineering design

Prototypes are essential tools in product design processes, but are often underutilized by novice designers. To help novice designers use prototypes more effectively, we must first determine how they currently use prototypes. In this paper, we describe how novice designers conceptualized prototypes and reported using them throughout a design project, and we compare reported prototyping use to prototyping best practices. We found that some of the reported prototyping practices by novice designers, such as using inexpensive prototypes early and using prototypes to define user requirements, occurred infrequently and lacked intentionality. Participants' initial descriptions of prototypes were less sophisticated than how they later described using them, and only upon prompted reflection did participants recognize more specific benefits of using prototypes. •Novice designers' prototyping conceptions were less sophisticated than their reported use.•Many prototyping behaviors reflected literature-based best practices.•Several prototyping behaviors occurred at low frequency and lacked intentionality.