Rapid Prototyping

Description

Rapid Prototyping is a method of quickly creating mockups of your tool, product, system or a website and showing it to the User before the product is actually implemented and developed.
Prototypes show how a feature will work or what the design will look like without prototyping the entire product in detail.
With the help of Rapid Prototyping, the design and functionality of the interface or the system that is prototyped can be evaluated and feedback can be collected from the Users and stakeholders at a very early stage and based on the feedback collected, the prototype is revised accordingly.
Rapid Prototyping is an iterative method and the Prototyping undergoes mutiple iterations until it is finalized. Making changes in the Prototype takes less time and effort than changes to the actual developed product. Also, costs involved in working with the Prototypes is less as compared to the implemented product.
Prototypes can range from hand drawn sketches to interactive mockups based on the fidelity level of the product to be prototyped. Generally, you can start with creating sketches and paper prototypes as mockups and then slowly build your Prototype to be more complex with each iteration.

Materials

• Pen
• Paper
• Online tools for prototyping

Preparation

It is important to understand the user requirements and their expectations in detail before starting to work on creating the Prototype.
Once you have collected the requirements, prioritize the ones that are most critical for the user and prototype only those features. You don’t have to prototype all the features.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Collect User requirements
2. Rapid Prototyping involves 3 steps that are followed iteratively until the user requirements are successfully
   Step 1: Prototype
   Step 2: ReviewStep
   3: Refine and Iterate
3. Step 1: Create a Prototype based on the level of fidelity. For Low-Fidelity prototypes, you can use sketches and Paper-Prototyping. For Medium-Fidelity and High-Fidelity Prototypes, you can use tools that help you create wireframes and other interactive mockups. The tool to use also depends on what kind of information exactly needs to be evaluated. For eg, If you want to evaluate a prototype that focuses on the look, color and visuals of the interface, then paper-prototyping or sketching might not be a good idea.
4. Step 2: Once the prototype is ready, you share it with the User or the other stakeholders to get their feedback. The Users can evaluate the prototype based on what their requirements were and review if the prototype meets their needs successfully and provide relevant feedback. Deliver if met else move to Step 3
5. Step 3: Based on the feedback collected from the users in Step 2, the prototype is refined to adjust and accommodate the new ideas. The new version of the prototype once built is then again sent to the users for review and this process is followed iteratively until the users are satisfied with the prototype.

Remarks, Tips, Limitations

• Start with a rough sketch and then move on to higher fidelity levels with each iteration.
• Do not spend a lot of time in building the prototype and refining it. They are meant to be built and refined rapidly.
• Do not prototype the entire product. Focus on critical features and functionalities
• Inform the users that the prototype they are evaluating is not the final product or else there will be confusion and they will misunderstand it as the actual product
• Cost effective
• Reduces design and development time of the actual product. Since we get feedback from the users at an early stage for the prototype, less modifications are anticipated in the actual implementation of the product

References

Srivastava, E.(2014).Effective Techniques For Rapid Prototyping – Usability Geek [Online]. Available at:https://usabilitygeek.com/effective-techniques-rapid-prototyping/(Accessed: 15 Mar 2021)
Wong, K.(2019).What is Rapid Prototyping ? What are Low and High Fidelity Prototypes? – Marvel Blog [Online]. Available at: https://marvelapp.com/blog/rapid-prototyping/ (Accessed: 15 Mar 2021).
Smith, J.(2015).What is Rapid Prototyping for UX [Online]. Available at: https://www.agitraining.com/ux/classes/rapid-prototyping-ux (Accessed: 15 Mar 2021).
Jain, A.(2018).A Beginner’s Guide to Rapid Prototyping [Online]. Available at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/a-beginners-guide-to-rapid-prototyping-71e8722c17df/ (Accessed: 15 Mar 2021).
Engineering Product Design.(2020).Rapid Prototyping[Online]. Available at: https://engineeringproductdesign.com/knowledge-base/rapid-prototyping-techniques/
(Accessed: 15 Mar 2021).
Interaction Design Foundation.(2020).Rapid Prototyping, Faking It Until You Make it in a UX Driven World[Online]. Available at: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/rapid-prototyping-faking-it-until-you-make-it-in-a-ux-driven-world (Accessed: 15 Mar 2021).

Contributed by Bhavana Malve