The prototyping stage is when our idea really began to solidify. We started off this stage with an idea we wanted to pursue, creating a sustainability rewards program, but we were slightly overwhelmed by the scope of this idea. At first we were all just throwing out different actions that could be rewarded and new ways to reward, until it felt like this program was far too big for us to handle. After a group meeting where we narrowed it down to five ‘actions’ and five ‘rewards’ the idea felt much less overwhelming, and quickly began to take shape.
We decided to have a two-pronged prototype, one a game, to engage people and make the idea more tangible, and the other a website, to give an overview of the program as a whole. Once we really nailed down our idea, and how we wanted to present it, the real work began. We had to create multiple personas and different options for them to take in the game, one a more ‘traditional’ way to earn miles, and an alternative that encouraged sustainability and rewarded the personas with additional miles. We also had to create a website to explain our idea and allow people to explore the program in a way they were more familiar with.
One of the most helpful parts of the entire process was receiving feedback from another group that had no background knowledge of our idea at all. They were able to point out surface level things that we had overlooked because, to us (who had been living and breathing everything Delta for weeks), they were obvious. In addition, some of our website was unfinished and we were unsure as whether it would be better to put the miles-to-donation amounts immediately on the “donate” page, or have a small blurb about the company and then have the user have to click on the company title to see the amounts they could donate. The other group was able to immediately tell us that the second option was much more helpful, and we were able to adjust that for the rest of our website.
The prototyping stage has allowed us to really implement what we’ve been learning all semester about our company and sustainability to create a product that benefits both. The low-fi prototyping has enabled us to be able to have fun with this and look for feedback from our classmates, in order to improve our product and make it the best it can be.