Prototypes are essential tools in product design processes, but are often underutilized by novice designers. To help novice designers use prototypes more effectively, we must first determine how they currently use prototypes. In this paper, we describe how novice designers conceptualized prototypes and reported using them throughout a design project, and we compare reported prototyping use to prototyping best practices. We found that some of the reported prototyping practices by novice designers, such as using inexpensive prototypes early and using prototypes to define user requirements, occurred infrequently and lacked intentionality. Participants' initial descriptions of prototypes were less sophisticated than how they later described using them, and only upon prompted reflection did participants recognize more specific benefits of using prototypes.

原型是产品设计过程中必不可少的工具，但新手设计师经常没有充分利用它们。为了帮助新手设计师更有效地使用原型，我们必须首先确定他们当前如何使用原型。在本文中，我们描述了新手设计师如何概念化原型并在整个设计项目中进行了报告，并比较了报告的原型使用与原型最佳实践。我们发现，新手设计师报告的一些原型制作实践很少发生，并且缺乏故意性，例如早期使用廉价的原型以及使用原型定义用户需求。参与者对原型的最初描述不像后来使用原型描述时那样复杂，