About the Journal

"Prototypes are intentionally incomplete versions of a design, features of which have been chosen for their capacity to provide information, experience, and communication. They are design’s guesses about the future. Designers make prototypes because they help us to ask questions about possible futures before we actually get there. Those questions might be as relatively straightforward as asking whether an expensive cell phone will sell better if it is lighter or heavier, or to what extent it matters how curved its corners will be. The questions could also be extremely complex, such as asking what we might expect to happen to the transportation infrastructure if no one needs to commute to work, or how the passenger experience may need to change if the majority of cars drive themselves." from "Prototyping across the Disciplines: Designing Better Futures", 2021, Eds. Roberts-Smith, Ruecker, & Radzikowska

Prototyping Across Disciplines is a peer-reviewed, trans-disciplinary design journal. Our mission is to champion and expand design’s contribution in research, industry, business, education, and not-for-profit sectors by providing readers with awareness and understanding of the use of prototyping in a wide range of fields. While traditionally associated primarily with industrial design, and more recently with software and web development, prototyping is now used as an important tool in areas ranging from materials engineering to landscape architecture to the digital humanities. By learning what is being done in various disciplines, those already involved in prototyping will be better equipped to engage in interdisciplinary collaboration, while those who are not yet active in the use of prototyping in their own fields may find inspiration to begin.

The Journal reflects the work of Ruecker and Roberts-Smith (2018) on how design research is situated alongside better-known modes of knowledge production (within the sciences, social sciences, and humanities disciplines). It is also a follow-up to the well-received 2021 collection, Prototyping across the Disciplines: Designing Better Futures (edited by Roberts-Smith, Ruecker, and Radzikowska, Intellect Books, 2021), which showcased prototyping in such diverse fields as industrial design, post-human design, immersive reality, physical-digital interaction, digital humanities, theater, education, landscape architecture, materials engineering, and arts entrepreneurship.

Submissions

The Journal welcomes three types of submissions: (1) Student Researcher Study Reports; (2) Contextualized Prototypes; and (3) Research Articles.

Student Researcher Study Report

  • provides an opportunity for at all levels to describe their ongoing research work, as opposed to the completed piece of research that would be expected if publishing in full article route
  • 2,000—3,000 words
  • 250-word abstract
  • 2 —5 keywords

Contextualized Prototypes

  • A collection of images with one-sentence descriptions of the relevant elements 
    • Your prototype (min 1 image)
    • Your other related prototypes or process
    • Other people’s related prototypes (min 3)
  • 250-word abstract on why this prototype adds to expert knowledge
  • 2 —5 keywords

Tell us how your prototype(s) build upon, extend, or challenge your previous work and/or the work of others. The work of others might be products already in the market, or prototypes from other people’s papers. If you can also discuss their prototyping process — that would be excellent, but we understand that information is often unavailable. That’s one of the reasons for the focus of this journal — to offer a repository of what is made contextualized within process, and goals or research questions.

We also welcome your critical readings of other people's products or prototypes, alongside or in the place of any information they have provided to guide our understanding of their work.

In terms of how specifically other prototypes need to be in the same research area, we are flexible. If you have enough, say 3-4, that are very specifically in your topic, that would be good, but if you need some that are more general, they would be okay too. The main purpose is to show the intellectual predecessors for your work, so readers can understand why you are doing your project.

When discussing your own prototypes, ideally include the process in detail, and especially anything that might have been unusual, since other researchers, particularly from other disciplines, might approach things differently.

Research Article

  • 5,000—7,000 words
  • 250-word abstract
  • 5 —10 keywords

As a multidisciplinary journal, Prototyping Across Disciplines welcomes submissions from researchers who have used prototyping to yield new insight to the knowledge base of their field.

Publication

Prototyping Across Disciplines publishes articles on a rolling basis—each submitted article is reviewed according to an eight to ten-week timeline. Once accepted, reviewed, and revised, the article is published.

Bottom line: the sooner you submit, the sooner you're likely to be published.

Discrete issues are formed from all manuscripts published within one of the following publishing windows:

  1. Vol 1 Iss 1 between July 1 and December 31, 2024
  2. Vol 1 Iss 2 between January 1 and May 30, 2025

Special Issues may be released when appropriate.

Peer Review

Articles undergo thorough peer review and we endorse COPE guidelines for reviewers. In accordance with COPE recommendations on ethical editing for new Editors, Editors will assign any submissions they cannot handle (e.g. if they are the author of an article submitted to their own journal) to a member of the Editorial Board or a guest editor.

  1. Student Researcher Study Reports and Contextualized prototypes: single-anonymous peer review (also called ‘single-blind peer review’)
  2. Research Articles: double-anonymous peer review (also called ‘double-blind peer review’)

The details of the comments as well as the overall recommendations by peer reviewers will be considered by the Editor(s) when making a decision, but ultimate responsibility for acceptance or rejection lies with the Editor(s).

It is a requirement to maintain confidentiality and integrity of the peer review and editorial decision-making process at all stages, complying with data protection regulations.

Open Access Policy

Prototyping Across Disciplines is an open access publication. Users may read, download, copy, and redistribute full-text articles for lawful purposes, without seeking permission from the author or publisher. We believe that open access is a public good as it promotes sharing of knowledge. Such access is associated with increased readership and increased citation of an author's work.

There are no submission fees, publication fees or page charges for this journal.

Copyright

Copyright for articles is retained by the authors, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. Please note that if you are uploading supplemental files, like datasets or survey instruments, these must also be provided under an open license and archived in an open repository. For more information, contact the editors.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission for any copyrighted material used, including illustrations, and providing documentation to the journal. 

Self-Archiving and Preservation

Authors are permitted to share any version of their work in any institutional, disciplinary, or other repository, and on personal websites, immediately upon publication with no embargo period. This includes sharing of the the final publisher version (e.g., journal PDF) and authors' pre- or post-prints. The shared version should include a proper citation and link to the published version appearing on the Prototyping Across Disciplines website, including the DOI.

Prototyping Across Disciplines is archived in the PKP Preservation Network (PN) using the LOCKSS program.