Prototyping matters to the design of new products and services because of the way prototypes anchor research and understanding to human experiences and perception.
The prototype helps to solve research problems when dealing with the extraordinary vastness of humans.
Human consciousness can move thru time and space. It can access the past thru memories and the future thru autonomics. It can shift and sort thru realities and fictions. It uses stories and narratives to both comprehend and communicate experiences to self and society.
Prototypes help because they create an anchor in the moment, the place, the intention of product or service use.
Using research surveys to investigate future needs or past experiences can fail because there is no embodied experience of actual use.
Human perception seeks usability. Without some interaction of use to lock imagination and intention, then the consciousness will extend and flail around. Needs and uses will be imagined and offered as predictions for future products. Likes and dislikes, problems and solutions will be recalled and narratively linked as coherent memories. Neither of these will be necessarily true. They will be true to the person but not necessarily in the sense that those are things they will do or what they actually did. It is not lies. It is human consciousness in its vastness.
Prototypes provide a reality. A moment of experience that enables communication of what is needed and what works. The prototype may only be able to represent one particular moment: other prototypes may be needed to explore more.
Use prototyping because it is effective and efficient. It saves time and money. It anchors the project as much as it anchors the people.