Throughout 2024, I am dedicating the first full weekend of every month to exploring the application of design-oriented thinking to improve our tennis lives. This series is inspired by a practice and philosophy described by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans in their book Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. This weekend, we are focusing on prototyping to evaluate alternatives.
Prototyping is a fundamental design technique used by engineers. It involves visualizing and evaluating concepts before committing to a permanent solution. This iterative process quickly explores ideas, identifies potential issues, and gathers additional data. It is an essential tool for innovation that generates insight from low-stakes experimentation.
In 2020, I described making a custom cargo bay organizer for my tennis racquet bag. It was a classic case of a COVID-19 shutdown improvement project to fill the void left by the cancellation of tournaments and league play. In that original post, I explicitly described the prototyping process used before the final solution was designed and built.
The central problem I faced was the awkward geometry between my 12-pack tournament racquet bag and the slope of the seat backs into my compact SUV’s cargo bay. The only logical placement of the bag created a lot of unusable space above the grip end of my racquet bag. I was extremely dissatisfied with that arrangement.
In a fit of weekend 12-ounce curls, I came up with the idea that constructing a riser to sit above the handle end of the bag might be a good solution to that problem. Before fully committing to that implementation, the natural first step was to create a prototype. I built a ledge by knocking out half of the bottom of an empty Shiner Bock case that just happened to be lying around to test out the concept.
It was immediately obvious that it was a fundamentally good solution. I also learned a lot from using the prototype for a couple of weeks. For example, I initially thought it would need to be physically attached to the cargo bay to keep it from sliding around. However, the cardboard version did not do that, convincing me that there was no need to drill holes into my car. The prototype also provided a very good working model of the necessary dimensions.
My long-term solution was eventually constructed from scrap lumber and materials I had lying around. It is not permanently attached and can be removed by lifting it out whenever I need additional cargo space. It was intentionally designed to nestle against a ridge of the hatch liner and match the seat’s contour for a flush fit.
One of the benefits of prototyping is producing insight into the design, which was certainly the case in this situation. The top shelf slopes toward the seat back, optimizing space utilization and keeping the shoes that I store there securely in place. A slight gap between the side of the organizer and the side of the car was enclosed to accommodate my windshield scraper and a wrench. As a bonus, when the racquet bag is tucked under the riser, it leaves a water jug-sized gap that is pinned in by the racquet bag. That prevents tip-overs while in transit.
In Designing Your Life, Burnett and Evans promote prototyping as an effective technique to bridge the gap between exhaustive research and fully committing to an idea without data. Their book extends the use of this technique from the physical realm into life decisions. Those same concepts also apply to designing your ideal tennis life. That is what we are exploring this weekend.
Throughout 2024, I am publishing a series of essays imaging how to apply the principles in ‘Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life‘ (<- sponsored link), which is a non-tennis book that I have come to believe that everyone should read.
A chronological summary of all posts on this topic is available on the Designing Your Tennis Life summary page.
