Compare Design Variations Quickly - Comparing several designs with each other is made easier through prototyping. What’s a better solution: a tabbed navigation menu or a list of links arranged vertically?
By definition, prototypes aren’t perfect because their purpose is pragmatic; they elicit feedback.
Prototypes should be, above all, quick and painless to create.
How to prototype and influence people
To design is to inspire participation.
The value of an idea is 0 unless it can be communicated.
To convince yourself and others of an idea.
You are iterating your solution as well as your understanding of the problem.
Prototypes are a much better at communicating a design. It’s much easier to sit down with designers, developers, product owners and of course users to get feedback and to run through design ideas if everyone can see how things might work with their own eyes.
Prototypes are more user friendly. Where as people are often scared off by wireframes everyone understands what a prototype is (just make it clear that prototypes are very different from the finished article).
Prototypes require less documentation as they are less open to interpretation and on-page interactions can be mocked up. If you do need to document your prototypes (hopefully with an emphasis on ‘just enough’ documentation) then you’ll find yourself having to write many fewer comments for a prototype than a set of wireframes.
Prototypes better support user-centred design. It’s much easier to carry out usability testing with a prototype than a set of wireframes and to get lots of juicy feedback from users in general.
Prototypes require less work. If you are careful to prototype ‘just enough’ to get the feedback that you need then prototypes typically require less work than wireframes because you’ll need to write (and maintain) less documentation.
Visual fidelity (sketched ↔︎ styled)
Look and feel are the most noticeable dimension of a prototype’s fidelity and, if not properly selected, can sidetrack prototype reviews. Go hi-fi too soon and users will focus on visual design, which is not appropriate in early stages. From a visual standpoint, prototypes do not have to be pixel perfect but should be proportional; for example, if the left navigation area has to occupy one-fifth of a 1024-pixel screen, it does not need to be exactly 204 pixels wide, as long as it is proportionally depicted in the prototype. As prototyping progresses through the design cycle, increase visual fidelity as needed by introducing elements of style, color, branding and graphics.
Functional fidelity (static ↔︎ interactive)
Does the prototype reveal how the solution will work (static) or does it appear to be fully functional and respond to user input (interactive)? This dimension is less of a distraction to users, but adding interactivity in subsequent iterations increases functional fidelity and allows the prototype to be used for usability testing and training and communications.
Content fidelity (lorem ipsum ↔︎ real content)
Another dimension that often distracts users is the content that is displayed in the prototype. Squiggly lines and dummy text like lorem ipsum are useful to avoid in early stages of prototyping. But as the prototype is refined, evaluate the need to replace dummy text with real content to get a feel for how it affects the overall design.
- Communicate design - A prototype demonstrates to a client what functionality the system will deliver and what it will be like for users to interact with that system
- Allow for participatory design - Available to the client team, the development team and a wide variety of users, prototypes lend themselves to a participatory design process where many key roles have to "buy-in" to the nature and behavior of the final product.
- Catch mistakes early - Ideally, prototypes are frequently tested in formal and informal usability sessions throughout their development.
- Support iterative development - In this way, the Web site or application interface can evolve (through the process of either adding, refining, or removing features and functionality) until it reaches a stable state.
- Facilitate detailed requirements gathering - Because prototypes provide a common ground of understanding between users, client team members, and development team members, they greatly help in establishing business requirements, application requirements, and use cases.
- Guide later development stages - Application Developers can use the prototype as a live representation of the use cases (even to the point of using prototype pages as a test front-end to their code) and to understand how the system is intended to interact with users.
Caveats of prototyping - Yet it is easy for both clients and team members to want to see more and more functionality and detail included in the prototype
The best arguments in favor of low fidelity prototypes are:
- Fast to build
- No technical or design ability required
- Prevent tunnel vision — don’t distract the end user with visuals
- Get good feedback fast
The reason high fidelity works so well can be summed up with one word: Engagement. No matter who your stakeholder – executive, end user, developer, UX pro – higher fidelity prototypes grab and hold you users attention much more effectively than low fidelity.
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