Bring life to a flat design with a prototype
Prototyping is a low-cost way to test a concept
Benefits of a prototype
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Prototyping lets you validate your idea before making any big investments
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With a prototype, we can test out your app with real users
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By getting feedback from users early on, you can build a better product
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Prototyping helps iron out UX issues, saving you time and money in the long run
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By breathing life into a flat design, prototyping can help get investor support
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Prototyping helps guide future development decisions
What is a prototype?
You know you have a great idea, right? But you aren’t quite sure how it will translate into an app. Enter the prototype! Simply put, a prototype is a mock-up or simulation of your real product. It lets designers give your target audience something that feels real, so feedback can be gathered early on in the design process. With a prototype, there’s no need to build a full fledged app; in fact we use little to no code to bring your app to life. That also means there’s no hefty upfront investments required! So you can validate your app idea with minimum risk. There are lots of benefits to prototyping, but ultimately it helps you fine tune your idea, and avoid costly mistakes later on.
Why prototyping?
The feedback we receive from prototyping, not only helps us to create a great user experience, but it also makes good business sense. By adding interactive components to a static design, prototyping can help you validate your idea before you invest time and money in a concept that may fail in the hands of your users. It also helps convince stakeholders of their investment, and quell any fears they might have. A prototype breathes life into your product early on, and makes sure it’s something your users will fall in love with.
Principles of effective prototypes
An interactive proof of concept
When creating a prototype, we focus on simulating the core functionality of your app. It doesn’t matter if your prototype doesn’t look like the real thing. Our goal is to create an interactive mock-up, not a fully-fledged UI design. What’s important is to create something that your users can interact with; whether it’s a series of hand-drawn sketches, or a number of high-fidelity digital mockups. We want to help prove your concept with real users before you invest time and money in the wrong idea. We believe that validating ideas early on with UI and UX prototyping can be the key to your digital product’s success. Once your idea is validated, we can add all the bells and whistles!
Check out this post to see how prototyping fits into our UX and UI process: User Experience Design (UX) and User Interface Design (UI). What’s the difference?
Low or high-fidelity prototyping
Depending on your time frame and the level of detail you require, we can either create a low-fidelity, or a high-fidelity prototype. Low-fidelity prototypes are great for a quick turnaround, or when you want user feedback early on. With a low-fi prototype, we start with a wireframe of your app’s most important pages. This can be sketched out on paper, or created digitally (we are more interested in the way users will interact with your product than on its appearance). When it’s ready, we gather test users and observe how they interact with your pages and features. Low-fi prototypes are beneficial because they give us valuable feedback at a very early stage of your app’s life-cycle.
High-fidelity, or “hi-fi” prototypes look more like the real deal. They are made to feel like a real app, but don’t necessarily look like the end product. UI design can come later! High-fidelity prototypes are functional and interactive, and are a great way for users and stakeholders to get a good idea of what it’ll be like to use the final app. These prototypes are also an effective tool to show investors what you’re planning to build.
Using prototypes for usability testing
Prototypes are a UX designer’s best friend. By adding interactive features to a flat design, prototyping allows us to get your app into the hands of real users from the word go! Running usability tests on prototypes not only helps you validate your idea, but also helps you avoid any last minute headaches. After all, you don’t want to rework your app at the 11th hour! That’s why getting feedback from your users early on is invaluable. Users have a knack for pointing out UX blind spots, and showing us exactly what needs to be improved and where. This feedback has a big impact on design and development decisions that are made further down the line.
So why not invite a few users to pull up a chair and test out your prototype? It’ll give you the peace of mind that your app is on the right track.
Showing your prototype to investors
By bringing life to a static design, prototyping can help investors visualise your concept. This makes it easier to get them excited about your app, and to see the opportunity for investment.
Because wireframes are not always enough for investors to visualise the end product, we often rely on high-fidelity prototypes for investor presentations. This type of UI and UX prototyping allows us to simulate the functionality of your app, and make it easy for investors to understand what you have in mind for the final product. By investing in a prototype, you’re not only demonstrating your commitment to your idea, but are also presenting it to stakeholders and investors in a professional format. So let your prototype do the talking. Believe us, it’s a worthwhile tool to help convince investors of your app’s potential.
Reduce risk and improve your chances of success with a prototype
It’s smart to prototype. It helps you to validate your app concept before you spend time, money, and resources on the wrong idea. Even a simple prototype can help reduce your risk significantly. Since development can be a costly endeavour, it’s wise to ensure that you have a good thing going before you spend money on it. The best way to do this? By prototyping your app, and then getting users to test it out.
UX and UI prototyping is also an excellent way to expose any user experience obstacles early on. Being aware of these imperfections allows you to allocate resources to the right cause, rather than spending time and money on something that’s less important.
So by having your product prototyped, tested, and validated means your chance at app success has multiplied! It’ll also make you more at ease heading into the design and development phases, because you know, you’re building a product your customers will love!
Looking to validate your UI or UX? Prototyping is the way to go!
There’s a reason why even the world’s biggest companies use prototyping to validate their ideas. Why not join them and increase your app’s chances of a 5-star rating?