A Simultaneous, Multidisciplinary Development and Design Journey – Reflections on Prototyping

This paper proposes a wayfaring approach for the early concept creation stage of development projects that have a very high degree of intended innovation and thus uncertainty. The method is supported by a concrete game design example involving the development of a tangible programming interface for virtual car racing games. We focus onto projects that not only have high degrees of freedom, for example in terms of reframing the problem or iterating the final project vision, but are also complex in nature. For example, these can be projects that allow for the exploration and exploitation of

unknown unknowns

and serendipity findings. Process wise we are primarily focusing onto the early stage that precedes the requirement fixation, which we see as more dynamic and evolutionary in nature. The core conceptual elements that we have derived from the development experiences are:

simultaneous prototyping

in multiple disciplines (such as computer science, electronics and mechanics and engineering in general,

abductive learning

based on the outcome of rapid cycles of designing, building and testing prototypes (

probing

), and the importance of

including

all the involved disciplines

(knowledge domains) from the beginning of the project on.