Develop, proven.
In context: Stage 08 · Develop
Where the finished design becomes prototypes you can hold, then gets tested with the real people who will use it.
Develop turns a detailed design into physical prototypes and then puts them in front of real users. Two sub-stages: build the prototypes (looks-like, then works-like, then production-ready) and test them (focus groups, A/B, fit, user testing, compliance). Find the problems here, where they are still cheap to fix.
What the Develop stage is
Develop is the stage where a design stops being drawings and screens and becomes a thing you can pick up, switch on and break. You build prototypes that climb from looks-like models to works-like units to parts off real tooling, then you test them against the people who will actually live with the product. The point is to learn fast and cheaply, before manufacturing locks the design in.
For the £149 proofing box, this is where Dan and Anna Hartley’s Stockport idea finally got hands-on. I built a first looks-like model so they could feel the size on a kitchen worktop, then a works-like unit that actually held 26°C overnight with no app to fiddle. We ran it past bakers from the Sourdough School and put it through the BS EN compliance checks before a single production tool was cut.
What’s in this stage
Develop runs in two sub-stages: build the prototypes, then test them. Work them in order, climbing the realism ladder as the questions get sharper.
How it fits the bigger picture
Develop builds on the detailed work of Stage 07 Engineer, taking a fully resolved design and proving it in the physical world. It leads into Stage 09 Manufacture: a product that has survived prototyping and user testing arrives at the factory with its risks already wrung out, so the line can be set up to make it at volume rather than to discover what is wrong with it.
What it can do
It turns a design into something real you can test, and it exposes the problems that only show up in the hand or in a kitchen. Done well, it ends with a proven product, evidence it works for real users, and the compliance results that let you sell it.
What it can’t do
It can’t fix a weak design; prototyping a flawed concept just produces a flawed prototype faster. And it can’t set up volume production or supply chains; that is Stage 09 Manufacture’s job.
See the full 10-stage process →
Try it yourself
Take your own product and decide the one riskiest assumption in it. Then design the cheapest, roughest prototype that would prove or kill that assumption this week, not a polished model. Build that first, learn, and only then climb the realism ladder.
Or run the guided version. The Free Sprint covers the early stages; deeper development tools sit in the paid ladder. Start the Free Sprint →
— Start here → Physical model prototype