Prototyping is an excellent technique to gather feedback from potential customers and stakeholders the fastest way.
Modern prototyping is more affordable and easier to perform, which makes the gains from it even more worthy. In this article, we will discuss the importance and main benefits of prototype in product design.
Importance of prototyping
The user interface is what can make your platform comfortable to use or a total disaster. Moreover, sometimes, well and thoughtful design can influence users’ behavior to your advance.
Your team must be crystal clear about what you want from the product and what content and design elements should be on each page.
To make the best design solution you should make a prototype first. It might be a simple B&W layout with a schematical outline. All key functions or elements should be present, so the potential customer can try if he likes the idea and how everything is located.
In addition to helping to define and identify the main direction of the design, prototyping also helps to save a lot of time.
You don’t need to spend a whole week constructing a new site layout after a day of making the concept. And it’s not the only reason to invest time and money in prototyping.
Main reasons to do prototype
You must first learn what prototyping is in detail, before outlining its advantages. The prototype is a crucial early design that is created before the release of the initial design layout.
A prototype is designed to display not only the layout of the future platform but also its directory structure and the connections between its key parts.
Because of the prototyping, the designer will concentrate on the key functional and marketing aspects — which can dramatically shorten the time it takes to complete the project.
The Inoxoft team distinguished these main benefits of the prototype in product design before establishing a layout:
- The consumer receives a detailed representation of the platform’s functionality and design in the finished product via the prototype.
- You may speed up the design process because after prototyping the designers will be concentrating more on crucial interface components.
- If the client still is unsure of what he wants from the platform — the conceptual design is a must-have.
- It is feasible to prevent significant modifications in the final layout by carefully planning throughout the prototyping stage.
- At this stage, you can define the useless functions and remove them before release.
- The workload of the designer in creating the project is greatly reduced by this technique, saving the client money.
- It’s easier for everyone to see the final product through the prototype.
- Prototyping can’t work without involving potential customers, which makes the whole process more productive and client-oriented
Key advantages of prototyping
There are several benefits to prototyping your upcoming good or service:
- Analyze the Technical Effectiveness
It is feasible to form an idea through prototyping and determine which elements of the project are challenging or impossible to implement.
Thus, creating a prototype can reveal unforeseen physical, technical, or monetary limitations.
- Improve the platform quality
Prototyping can help you make the usability testing, adjust the site navigation, and test the overall comfort of use and functionality.
- More clearly explain your project to the audience
Gaining feedback from the target audience can help understand their needs and implements the solutions to your project. This way you have a significant advantage before your offer is officially launched.
Additionally, having a prototype could help to build a marketing plan and start pre-sales.
- Lower the risk
Although this benefit might be not so obvious it nonetheless has a crucial role. The project that has finished the prototyping phase has far fewer chances to fail than those where prototyping was not done.
The explanation is simple: prototypes have a direct impact on the project’s most crucial elements, including resources, and time.
Most of the hidden flaws can be revealed during the prototyping phase. As a result, the number of resources and development time required can be calculated and, therefore, you will be prepared.
- Iterate more efficiently
It is feasible to refine the main offer till the creation of the ideal product by gathering and analyzing the feedback from potential clients.
To minimize the additional costs of unsold inventory and reprogramming the production line, it is also advisable to make a few prototypes to test before beginning a large production.
- Model and test the product
A prototype’s most significant benefit is that it simulates the actual and future products. Contact with prototypes might encourage potential customers to invest in the product.
Before the design is released, you can test its accuracy and find design flaws. Additionally, making a prototype available to potential customers enables developers to learn in advance how their product interacts with users and lives up to their expectations.
- Give Specific Feedback
Each person has a unique conception of the intended product and, in theory, desires this conception to be made in a release version.
A prototype can help beneficiaries to view the product from a fresh angle and helps to bring all thoughts together as well as implement new solutions. Seeing the image of how the product might look after the release can make them give more concrete feedback and ideas.
To understand customer needs and expectations feedback is crucial. It will also help to discover business demands and to see the direction of development the product should take.
- Improving the plan
Putting the concept into practice can give you crucial data that aid in further planning. In most cases, a prototype serves as a good ground point and aids the entire team in discovering and keeping the user’s needs.
Conclusion
Although this article favored the benefits affecting the customer base, we can reasonably presume that the prototype will help both sides equally.
Making a prototype can help you to make the process of building a web platform more comprehensible, manageable, and comfortable for everyone involved.