Once you have a design, create a prototype.  If you are developing something for someone else you will very likely document the design in a form that is not very clear to your client.  You need to translate the design into something that will be clear and obvious to your client. 

My wife, Trudi, is the Artistic Director for Northern California Ballet.  I often create the sets to be used in her ballets.  Even though there is no formal requirement for me to document my designs, I create informal drawings.  I need the drawings to actually build.  The detail I put in depends on my anticipated need during building.  These are the typical 2 dimensional drafting type descriptions.  They are, to me, very clear and obvious description of what I plan to build.  When I show them to Trudi, the blank stare on her face tells me I have a problem.  She can choreograph an entire full length classical ballet, seeing in her mind the most intricate and (to me) confusing combinations of steps.  Yet no matter how hard she and I try, my drawings are as meaningful to her a page full of random doodles.  We both know from experience that she will be surprised at what I build and I will be surprised and dismayed at her reaction to it.  Therefore I now always build a scale model.  Scale models are things that make sense to her.  All she has to do is imagine them a bit larger. 

But the first time I did this, something unexpected happened.  The first model I built was not the one that I showed her.  My models inform me about my design in unexpected ways and prompt me to make changes.  This is obviously good since a change at the design phase is far less costly than any time later in a project.  In theater set construction there is rarely time to correct a design flaw discovered during construction.  I have been doing theatrical productions for more than 30 years.  I have been the technical director in well over 50 productions.  We have never posted a sign at the theater front door saying, "Due to a project slippage, we ask you to come back in 2 weeks." I recommend anyone who is a project manager or is interested in becoming a project manager; practice their project management craft by building sets for theater.  By the time we actually build a set piece, it is extremely unlikely we will have the time to have a second go at it.  Faults in the design tend to be in the show.  Therefore even when I am building something just for myself I now very often build a prototype first.  I know from experience it will change my mind and consequently the design.

What features are in the prototype and what is out? For the most part it will be pretty obvious.  If it is not, then you are not ready to be a designer or architect.  To know what to put in and what to leave out does take some practice and experience but it is not very difficult.  You do, however, have some decisions to make.  For example, when I needed a pirate ship that would be moved on and off of stage, I built a scale model of the ship and the theatre.  The ship was rather large for the space and it seemed important to see just how it would fit through the wings.  I also put a stick figure of the largest and of the smallest person who would stand on the ship, so we could see the perspective of person size to ship size.  A real ship would have been several times bigger compared to a person's size.  We wanted to make certain that the size didn't look ridiculously small.  Both the model and the real ship had cannons.  The ones on the real ship fired.  The ones on the model did not.  Trudi needed to know where the cannons would be so that she didn't put a dancer right in front of one when it fired.  The real ship had wheels.  The model did not.  I did not paint the model.  I can tell you the reason for each item I consciously put into or left out of the model.  I can do the same for every prototype of software applications that I have designed.  When I examine those reasons, I see that most of them depend on the specific circumstances of the project and the people involved.  Experience will be your teacher.

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