Reflection 2
In this paper, the authors measure effectiveness through the number of clicks users had for ad creations, time spent on the website, and independent ratings from professionals. One set of participants created ads in a serial fashion, continually refining and receiving feedback. The other set of participants created ads in parallel, developing multiple prototypes and receiving feedback on each one. Their results revealed that the parallel participants outperformed the serial participants for every metric. A major hypothesis the authors have is that parallel prototyping leads to feedback comparison which leads to a greater understanding of the interrelated variables involved, it leads to more divergent concepts, and leads to a greater increase in design task-specific self-efficacy. The results were promising for each hypothesis, showing parallel work leading to “higher-quality, more-diverse work and experience a greater increase in self-efficacy.”
There is an underlying implication that greater diversity leads to more creativity, and the creativity of the ads lead to more user engagement. One major flaw or possible risk with the paper and its results are the possibility of a decrease in quality feedback because of the quick turnout rate. Furthermore, a lesser quality feedback could result in a potential great idea getting lost or not coming into fruition. It could definitely be a good general rule and is logical from a utilitarian perspective. However, some of life’s greatest ideas were bizarre initially or illogical at the beginning stages. Parallel prototyping could mishandle future great ideas which could be a tragedy or literal world-changer. Thus, I think parallel prototyping should depend on the context. For advertisement, the stakes are much lower than for instance deciding where to allocate money for research ideas involving cancer.
This method might be able to be applied with the semester project in the sense of developing multiple prototypes that have small pipelines. Then, after selecting or combining these prototypes of the various pipelines, a larger pipeline can be created after receiving feedback from the instructor on the smaller pipelines. This larger pipeline can also be refined. It could be difficult to receive feedback quickly on multiple prototypes. Realistically, it might be more reasonable to go with the classical serial method or choose multiple but not too many. That is another interesting avenue the paper could have tackled. Seeing where the “sweet spot” is for multiple prototyping to the point of where too many could lead to ineffectiveness. Overall, this was an interesting and thought-provoking read.