Prototype
Prototypes are tangible representations of products or solutions that are being designed. As Poggenpohl [1] explains, prototypes are a “material conversation that the designer has with the User”. By seeing them as “a way to learn from the user what familiarity the object has (or lacks), what patterns of behaviour the object fits into, what intuitive responses the user brings to the object and which aspects of the prototype elicit satisfaction or delight”. She distinguishes prototyping from usability testing, “which seeks to verify the design of a product holistically at a rather late point in the development process” Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag . Poggenpohl [2] distinguishes between four different kinds of prototypes that often overlap: conceptual (diagram, sketch), behavioural (paper model, computer simulation), procedural (space/time sequence), and appearance (refined model) prototypes.
