Concept Capture
How to establish an effective prototype…
Even if you didn't know it as a student you have used a Concept Capture in some form throughout your education. Many English classes to Advanced Design classes utilize this method to help develop an idea and put your thoughts on paper in an organized fashion. This process usually happens after mind mapping but is similar because it pushes the process of ideation one step further and helps you understand the pieces of the solution.
Before you begin a Concept Capture you must either have researched, tested, or choose an idea to focus on. This step most commonly takes place within the prototyping phase. In Design Capstone my group decided before we could capture our idea at a high level we needed to sort through the ideas we had. We did this by using a Combine Ideas template shown below.
After successfully combining our ideas we choose to develop a “kit” even though we all had a mental image of what it would do and incorporate we struggled to put pen to paper. A member informed us that a Concept Capture would be a viable option to bridge the gap. This method works by breaking down your concept/solution into categories. It also helps to understand where a project is going and the necessary next steps.
The Concept capture consists of describing what inspires the design (background research/interviews), the opportunities to identify, a simple description, and lastly exploring the functionality. We used this order to fill out our Concept Capture, but there is no strict method to fill it out. One of the reasons I enjoy using this technique is you can hop around the quadrants to develop your point and work through the areas that are stumping you or your team. From previous experience, it is important to note describing the functionality of a concept is more of a developed section and it could be helpful to touch on the other quadrants before proceeding to this one.
This is the perfect method to take advantage of during a prototyping process since in my opinion, the most difficult part of creating an effective prototype is understanding it. Not just knowing what you are making, but how it affects the audience you are creating it for. The Concept capture does just that by giving a formatted way to explore a solution. It also is a telling moment if a designer is struggling to fill out the form then maybe the prototype path that you are going down is not an adequate solution to the problem at hand.
On the other hand, though, it is an earlier stage in the design process and a simple way to capture ideas. This means that even though this will help you progress in the design process it is not an in-depth analysis of a concept. I see it more as a way to work through and understand an idea and if it could become successful. If your goal is to thoroughly plan out and develop an idea or you are moving from a low-fidelity prototype to a high-fidelity prototype a different method would be more suitable.
Overall, a concept capture is a user-friendly model to start building a successful prototype and help to understand what is necessary for the user to get the most of your solution.