IDENTIFYING PROTOTYPING COMPETENCIES AND ROLES IN EDUCATION

Abstract

There have been recent efforts at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) in identifying levels of design competency to support teaching and assessment, which has resulted in the development of the Design Competency Assessment (DesCA) framework. One competency area in this framework is prototyping. To understand the nature of prototyping activities, an extensive literature review was conducted along with an empirical study at SUTD to address the following research questions: How do individual instructors define prototyping? What roles do prototypes play in the design process in courses at the university? What prototyping frameworks, methods, and tools are introduced in these courses? Herein we report preliminary results based on 17 interviews with SUTD instructors from different disciplines, who teach, supervise, or are interested in prototyping. Insights from this work include: (1) variations in definitions of what a prototype is across different fields, (2) lack of intentionality in prototyping, and (3) missing associated competencies, including how to select appropriate prototyping methods and tools. Taken together, these insights will allow us to re-examine the way prototyping is taught and how prototyping is represented in the DesCA framework.