This series of three videos (Sketch Prototyping, Digital Prototyping and Native Prototyping) is about turning ideas into reality. The prototype is an experimental model of ideas that are tested by users, stakeholders, developers, and designers to see if it is valuable and achieves its purpose.

Rapid Prototyping: Sketching

  • Sketching is a fundamental part of the process and can help designers make key decisions.
  • UX designers can draw the initial idea on paper and show the basic app structure. They can also redesign their design and quickly visualize new ideas, but it’s difficult to understand the user interactions.
  • Paper prototyping can help designers think through key user interactions.
  • Google material design makes navigation much easier.

Rapid Prototyping: Digital

  • They were working on a fictional e-commerce app.
  • Designers use Sketch and Principle to simulate the real experience of running on a real device. This is when the prototype starts to feel more realistic, as they have scrolling enabled. Another role is to explain design details to engineers.
  • This process is stakeholders and users testing the design together.

Rapid Prototyping: Native

  • This stage uses technology to turn ideas into reality. Use real devices 、real data and real users.
  • This is the part where the engineer writes the code. (Writing android apps in Java and building ios apps in Swift)
  • A realistic experience to gather user experience.
  • Finally, it is about explaining the vision to others.

These three processes require iterative design, prototype, test and validate. Different divisions of labour are required to work together to complete the design and ultimately tell a compelling story to the stakeholders.

https://medium.com/low-pass-filter/a-beginners-guide-to-rapid-prototyping-71e8722c17df

  • When used well, rapid prototyping will improve the quality of your designs by enhancing communication between the various parties and reducing the risk of building something that no one wants.
  • A prototype is not designed to be a fully functional version of a system. As Google Ventures design partner Daniel Burka says:

Do’s:

  • Work with users and stakeholders to get the most feedback and engage them in the ownership of the final product
  • Set expectations early by making sure the users and stakeholders know that prototyping is a way to get answers to specific questions, and does not represent the finished product.
  • Make your high-fidelity realistic (including response delays) so that users and stakeholders are not disappointed when they compare it with the final product.
  • Save templates and stencils to reuse on future projects.

Don’ts:

  • Don’t prototype features that won’t be in the final product
  • Don’t be a perfectionist. Good enough is your friend. The goal of rapid prototyping is to give everyone common ground.
  • Don’t prototype everything!