Most of the time when we're trying to figure out if something will work, we try to think about it deeply. We sit in rooms, draw diagrams, write strategies, build slide decks. We talk it through until it feels right. And then we go build it, and when it meets reality, things fall flat.
This happens everywhere. In interface design, sure, but also in business models, organizational changes, product launches, service concepts. Anywhere the outcome depends on how real people behave in real situations, thinking it through only gets us so far. Our brains are bad simulators. They fill in gaps with assumptions. They mistake confidence for correctness.
The fix isn't to think harder. It's to try things. Build something, put it in front of someone, see what happens. That's prototyping. Not as a phase in a process or a line item in a project plan, but as a way of creating. When we make something real enough to test, we stop speculating and start noticing things we couldn't have predicted.
The reason this is worth talking about now is that our tools have caught up. It used to take serious time and money to build something testable. That kept prototyping locked inside R&D labs and well-funded design teams. Now a working prototype can come together in hours. The fastest path to a better decision is no longer to discuss it longer; it's to make something and find out.
That's what prototypeverything means.
This is what I do. I help you get from "we think this works" to "now we know" by building things early, testing them with real people, and learning from what happens. I've been doing this for over fifteen years across industries: animation pipelines, public transport, water management, geological analysis, consumer products. The contexts change; the approach doesn't.
My name is Guus Baggermans. I'm a Principal Designer at argodesign and a digital artist whose work explores how we perceive time and impermanence. Before this I worked at argodesign, co-founded Raft in Amsterdam, worked as interaction designer at frog, and co-hosted the podcast Let's fix things Joe Fletcher and I assessed and discussed the impact of technological innovation on the landscape of business and design.
Across all of it, the thread has been the same: thinking by making.
Substack - Medium - LetsFixThings podcast - LinkedIn
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