Article criticized: Dow, S., 2011, “How prototyping practices affect design outcomes,” Interactions, 18(3), pp. 54-9. Summary The article explains effect of prototyping practices on design outcomes. Using iterative practices in project delivery can lead to better results. Instead of working on making a perfect design, iterative practices help designers learn from their previous mistakes and deliver a better result. For example (cited in Bayles and Orland 2001), two groups were asked to make pottery by a teacher. He had access to one group on quantity and the other group on quality. Surprisingly, the first group made a lot of ceramics and learned from their mistakes, while the quality group was just discussing the perfect design. This is a great example that shows that iterative practice helps refine the design process. Prototyping limits the design results to some extent. Prototypes can focus the discussion only on improvement, rather than exploring further ideas. To explore better design ideas you need to consider multiple alternatives when designing a product. There is also a parallel approach that involves creating multiple prototypes at the same time. By sharing more projects you can explore more ideas and make the design more diverse. Creating parallel projects helps you explore multiple possibilities and offers a new perspective in creating projects. You can use multiple designs to create an effective design. Side projects are always open to new ideas and can provide more diverse solutions to our problems. Iterations help designers improve designs but also limit them to just one option. However, creating multiple projects gives them the opportunity to explore different design contexts. Some might argue that doing... middle of paper... leads you to think that the design phase of product development isn't important. But now it seems that it is only the design process that makes the product original. Product innovation is reflected through the design process. In terms of design methods, the parallel prototyping approach should be used to achieve better results. Applying these ideas in our work practice will improve the efficiency of products in the organization. The effect of prototyping and critical feedback on fixation in engineering designTrina C. Kershaw1, Katja Hölttä-Otto2 and Yoon Soo [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] of 1Psychology, 2Mechanical Engineering and 3Design, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth285 Old Westport Road, North Dartmouth, MA 02747 USA