UX

One of the most critical stages of turning an idea—a figment of your imagination—into a real-world product or application is the prototyping stage. Here at Makibie, we typically create prototypes shortly after or sometimes even in parallel with the wireframing stage, as we employ a modified agile development process to get tangible ideas and working software in front of our clients as soon as possible.

Why do we do this? Because just like good authors know “showing” makes for better storytelling than, well, “telling,” conveying the merit of an idea or a concept is much easier and much more effective if the audience has something tangible in front of them that allows them to grasp, or visualize, the idea or concept wholly independent from your pitch. Think of the Socratic method: learning is much easier, and the concepts learned are more readily absorbed and remembered, if the teacher gently guides his or her students to the promised land rather than preaches to them or lectures to them. A good prototype does much the same thing: it sells the audience on your concept by immersing them into it, by allowing them to draw their own conclusions about it. The better the prototype, the better the impression your idea or concept will make on your audience.

You can get a good deal of mileage out of a good prototype. Essentially, a prototype serves three distinct purposes: two of them obvious, at least from the perspective of a design firm, and one of them too often overlooked, but essential if you want your idea or concept to succeed in the marketplace.

First off, a good prototype is an essential element of a good design process, especially in the conceptual design phase and immediately thereafter. A good prototype is a workable, functional, clickable, hands-on, tangible thing that conveys your idea or concept so well that your audience can buy into it without having to guess at its finer points. Even if your prototype at this stage is nothing more than a series of clickable image maps, it’ll help you and your team shake out some of the finer points of the design, including all-important elements like workflows and processes. Though your prototype doesn’t have to be fully functional at this stage—in fact it would crazy to invest time into coding it from soup to nuts—it’s a very good idea to slice your prototype vertically and make certain parts of it, or certain workflows or processes, fully functional, especially if by doing so you can demonstrate a new and innovative use of technology. Especially if by doing so you can demonstrate a combination of data points or a streamlining of functionality that simplifies the information architecture, and can prove to the technical people that hurdles can be overcome.

Second, a good prototype is essential for usability testing. Usability testing, of course, is a vital element of the design process, as it validates or invalidates your idea’s or your concept’s design against the purpose it was designed to serve. The better your prototype, the better the results you’ll receive from usability testing.

Finally, the often-overlooked advantage of a good prototype: it serves as the foundation for a sales demo that you can use to validate your idea or your concept in the marketplace. As before, when you mold your prototype into sales demo form, it doesn’t have to be fully functional, but it should be functional enough to give your sales force the ammunition they’ll need to sell your concept in the marketplace, or at least test your idea or concept in the marketplace. After all, in addition to its primary purpose—selling—a sales demo serves as an unparalleled litmus test you can use to see how features and functionality resonate in the marketplace. Once you know which features and functionality the market really wants, you can make your idea or concept that much better.

By Robert Pothier