Laser Cutting Prototypes
Creating 2 1/2D Models On Rhino
Design
I wanted to design a paper prototyping frame that could be used when testing paper prototypes. My goal was to make this frame look realistic so that it would be a somewhat accurate representation of what an app would look like within a tablet or phone frame. First I sketched out a frame to understand what I was going to make. It was a flat boxlike structure with a slot at the bottom through which paper prototypes could be inserted and taken out.
I then made the prototype out of cardboard to get measurements of how big the model would approximately be. I made this model around my iphone so that it would be a somewhat accurate representation of how an app may function on an iphone. The cardboard I made around the iphone was around 4.3 X 7 X .3 inches.
After creating the cardboard prototype I decided to start making the frame on rhino. The cardboard prototype I made involved gluing the edges so I was trying to figure out how to make this without having to make pieces that I would have to stick together. I then remembered the box designer tool online, and put in the given dimensions for a “box.” I knew that I would have to change this box later. I exported this PDF and put it into rhino.
I put the box into the cutting layer and added additional rectangles to the top and side so that there was a slot to put the paper through and the frame through which the prototypes could be seen. On the engraving layer I added the round button on the iphone as well as the top camera and oval piece at the top of the iphone (See below).
After this I proceeded to laser cut my prototype and I ended up with parts looking like this:
And when the model is assembled and has a paper prototype in it, it looks like this:
Analysis
The frame turned out a little bit bigger than I expected. Maybe my measurements were off or maybe due to the fact that I rounded up with the numbers just to be safe the frame turned out this way. It was also difficult to put the frame together because I made the notches really small.
Despite these things the user testing went smoothly. It was relatively easy to put the paper prototypes in the slot and the frame was an effective way of showing how the paper prototypes would look within the actual interface. There were only a couple of things that users pointed out or had trouble with:
You have to cut the paper prototypes to the exact size of the frame. Usually when paper prototyping you make your prototypes approximately the size of a phone or tablet but you don’t really measure them out. In order to use this frame you would have to do so to make sure the papers fit within the dimensions of the frame. If this frame fit the standard paper size then it would have probably saved some cutting and measuring effort the user would have to put in to use this, but then again people don’t usually use whole pages to create a single screen of a paper prototype.
The frame was weak. As I mentioned before the notches on the prototype are small and don’t fit together very well. After putting papers into the slot if you want to take off the top frame to take out the your papers the rest of the frame starts to come apart. I should have made the notches bigger or created some extra fastening material to keep the prototype together.
Overall, the design serves its purpose well. If I found solutions to the two things users pointed out then the design would be even more effective and optimal. Laser cutting was a fun experience and watching the machine work was pretty cool, I would definitely laser cut again to create models and prototypes of my designs!