Activity 19 – reflecting on the experience of developing the prototype

·      Funny how, again, we arrived at a division of work (2 weeks of the prototype each) without needing to formally allocate work – everyone just got on with it. The features table was a useful tool that enabled people to hold up there hands to volunteer for the bits they wanted to do. We had no clashes.

·      I guess it would have been interesting to see what would happen if 2 people had wanted to do the same bit.

·      I think in practice we are all quite relaxed and ‘non-territorial’ – the work is sufficiently pressured and the resources sufficiently constrained that I think we all intuitively recognise the value of letting people pitch in wherever and whenever they can.

What was my role in this phase?

·      I wrote the prototypes for Week 2 and Week 7.

·      I joined in the team calls we had to discuss points of confusion.

Was the process clear and efficient?

·      It was reasonably clear.

·      Efficient? I think it was sufficiently efficient for this stage of the process. We didn’t duplicate work. All 4 team members contributed their energies.

·      Ideally the prototype would have been opened up for review earlier – we opened it up on Friday 14^th June, one day after the official completion date.

·      I wonder if we couldn’t have reduced the workload by only prototyping parts of the storyboard in detail – we have ended up prototyping the whole course really.

Were my expectations met?

·      I think so. Perhaps we could have focused more on 'what works' for different learning objectives, and this would make us prototype in more depth in certain areas. E.g. if we want people to know how to use some of the digital tools, have we really prototyped something that lets us see if the learning works? Are there sufficient opportunities for learners to experiment and practise?

The advantages and limitations that I perceive in constructing a prototype

Advantages

·      Focuses the mind.

·      Forces you to see the flow of design.

·      Makes it easier to see the antecedents and precedents required for all steps of the process.

Disadvantages

·      Risks forcing a linear view to be taken when the design should still be very fluid and iterative.

·      I think we’ve found it difficult in practice to know which bits of the prototype to prioritise.