alistairuff

Category: Prototyping

  • Prototyping in an Ai enabled world

    If, like me, you’ve ever been involved in the redesign of a ‘simple digital service’, you will know that there is perhaps no such thing. Very few services, if considered carefully are either simple, or in fact entirely digital. Even when constrained to ‘just’ the digital bits. Design work involves many small decisions that are…

  • Academic design research work I’ve found helpful

    I’ve reflected a few times on the potential value of bridging the gap between academic and professional design research. Its worth being clear that this isn’t because I think is one is better/more high brow/more applicable than the other. I just like to have context and history of the development of design research theory and…

  • Reflecting on research (part 2)

    This is a follow up from part 1 (you’re shocked, I can tell). Read that for some more context. The fact that the research has lasted over nine years (2016-2025) has been tough, but its also had some benefits. being honest it makes me cringe thinking about how many commercial design research projects (and even…

  • Reflecting on research (Part 1)

    If you’ve been following along with my research work at all, you’ll know its been going a while. The final thing I needed to write up was a reflection on my experience. As someone who likes to get value out of things I write (and I actually have some time, because we’re away without the…

  • Surviving meetings as a designer (or similar)

    It can be tempting to wish that meetings weren’t a thing, or at least that all of them were expertly facilitated by someone who has put the time into preparation and the has the skills. Sadly this isn’t the case. You’re going to have to work out how to cope in meetings, and many of…

  • My adventures with print on demand

    AKA how I made £2.46 in a week. I’m sure there’s a really long epic paragraph I should write here about my entrepreneurial spirit yadder yadder. Mostly I’ve had dumb ideas, bought domains and never got any closer to a ‘business model’ than that. I’ve seen people ‘building in the open’ and it some across…

  • Learn fast and make things

    If you’ve not realised it by now, banging on about the value of prototyping is kind of my thing now. It could be incoherently in my weeknotes, in around 14,000 words (so far) trying to get an academic project over the line, or a blog post for work. Not every piece of work I’ve been…

  • Seven things to think about when prototyping a service

    A different way to think about fidelity when you’re planning service prototypes.

  • Service Design Skills

    The output from a service design community of practice session where I asked attendees “When I work with a service designer, the skills I need the, to bring are”. See what they said…

  • Are paper prototypes a waste of time?

    Some people are quick to dismiss what they see as time consuming and low value prototypes, but I reckon they should think again.

  • Towards a new way of thinking about prototyping services

    Services can be tricky to prototype, and designers have largely uncritically applied current prototyping practice to how we design services. What are the opportunities to develop a service specific approach to prototyping?