The Wizard of Oz prototype is a bit of more theatrical for testing new ideas.
The goal in a Wizard of Oz prototype is to create a fake version of your solution that the user believes is really working; however, in the backend, you are doing all the heavy lifting.
Let me tell you the story of a friend of mine, a User Experience Designer called Robin van Zessen. Robin tested out a new chatbot service using a Wizard of Oz prototype.
He didn’t create at first an artificial intelligence that would enable a chatbot to exist. No instead, he just put users in front of a screen where a fake chatbot asked questions to the user. But, in fact, this was a traditional chat system, where Robin was hidden in another location acting as the chatbot. By doing so, he was able to see the real behaviors of people interacting with his possible new solution, but didn’t invest a ton of precious time to really build all the technology around the chatbot.
Going further
This article is part of my free course "What is Service Design?" which helps you to discover what Service Design is and why it is powerful to enhance the customer experience.