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What a designer does, for and with whom, and how design is done, has changed over time – and will continue to change also in the future. While history as a discipline inherently has its focus on what has been, the focus of the discipline of design is that of what could become. Although we in recent years have seen examples and proposals of different ways of writing design histories, it is still not easy to find accounts of how different design practices came about. One difficulty in writing a history of designing, is that there are very few sources that give insights into how design was actually done at different points in time. Structures and time frames of design processes, methods used from concept to final solution, and persons involved in design processes are seldom described as such in any written format by the people actually doing design. In a best case, archives and publications will contain sketches, perhaps prototypes in some cases, and we can often access final results as physical manifestations or images thereof – but only very seldom do we find documentation of the processes and methods beyond the 2- and 3-dimensional material.

In this paper, I discuss examples of how the introduction of prototypes, and prototyping, as methods for developing design practices aiming to expand understandings of what design could be. Prototypes in design history can tend to be used to discuss or highlight an individual designer’s artistic abilities and developments, in terms of formal and material qualities. The prototype is seen as the artistic expression, the hand made original, that antedates the type – the industrially or commercially produced final design. By comparison, prototypes in current user-centered design practices are described to be used with the intention and aim to explore ideas or interactions, test and discuss concepts, in settings where different people – not only an individual designer – make use of the prototype in order to learn new things together, and to work together towards understanding, improving or conceptualizing something.

With a focus on collaborative design processes, that were important for the emergence of Scandinavian user-centered design practices the Nordic countries, I will discuss how design histories that take a starting point in designing could contribute to emerging design practices today.  Prototyping  in designing was, and still is, used as a way to open up arenas for collaborative learning, aiming to produce possible new designs not only of physical everyday objects, but also of social and societal practices. With these examples of design histories of changing design practices, I will also argue for how design histories such as these could themselves be seen and used as prototypes in contemporary design situations.