What is the importance of a good prototype? Isn’t it enough to make a visualisation of your design idea on the computer?
Apparently not. To dig deeper into this matter, we were on the lookout for an experts opinion.

The last seminar of the year 2020, our design agency had the pleasure of attending a workshop with our teacher and design professional Tom Verbist. A great way to end the first semester of design seminars with a hands-on workshop about storytelling and prototyping. Before taking matters into our own hands, Tom gave us an insight into his work at Achilles Design and therefore pointing out how important it is to make prototypes during a design process. Achilles is a leading design & innovation agency, located in their brand new offices in Mechelen. Throughout his years in the design field, Tom encountered many cases in which tests and prototypes proved to be of great added value for both designer and client. Standing in front of our young design agency, he took the chance to convey this message to us, future proof designers, and made sure we will never forget it.

To proof his point, Tom presented us with a tool to visualise a customer journey with 3D illustrations and storyboards which is called “Scenes” (created by the SAP AppHaus). The purpose of this toolkit is to make sure that anyone who was not working on our project, in this case, our colleagues, can understand our design story with ease and without an explanation.

In a year that has been dominated by online work and Miro boards, taking part in this seminar was a lot of fun since it provided us with a means to design a customer journey from scratch in a creative way. It is fun to craft things yourself and the tools Tom presented to us really made a difference in the detailing of the journey. In the future, this tool is a very helpful one to use for other design projects as well, as it proves to be a great brainstorming exercise to do within a team.

Curious how this tool could be any help for you? Discover it here.
For more information about Tom and his work in Achilles Design, click here.