Prototyping as a Means of Requirements Elicitation

The intent of this paper is to describe methods for using prototypes as a means of eliciting product requirements. The focus of the paper will be on electronics development, but the principles described in this paper apply to any type of engineering or product development.

Prototypes serve a number of purposes throughout the life cycle of product development, from refining the initial concept to serving as a comparison point for the final product. This paper will focus on the use of prototypes - from crude mock-ups to production-intent models - to help capture and refine the initial product requirements.