Prototyping: What’s All The Fuss About?
When you’re biting at the bit to get your website, app or software up and running, it can be frustrating to jump through the hoops of the design process to reach the end goal. However, prototyping is a stage that should never be skipped or rushed; without a prototype, it’s unlikely that the finished product will deliver on expectations.
To give you an insight into what prototyping involves that makes it so important, let’s take a look at why prototyping is the bread and butter of any design worth its salt in the digital world:
Singing from the same hymn sheet
Software developers may be pretty smart, but we’re not mind readers – yet! Although we listen carefully to your vision during those first few encounters, it can be difficult to communicate the picture you have in your head so that it translates into like-for-like results.
Prototyping allows us to get these ideas down on paper (well, these days it tends to be digital), to ensure that we’ve understood your needs and wants loud and clear. By giving you a prototype to approve, we can ensure that we’re singing from the same hymn sheet.
Room for improvement
In an ideal world, that initial vision would be the perfect finished product, signed off and ready to build. However, often when these ideas are put into practice, shortcomings come to light.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it allows you to ensure the final results are right first time, with a product that’s even better than the original concept. As such, the process of prototyping is paramount if you want to avoid mistakes during the design and development.
Save time and money
Pinpointing and fixing a piece of coding in software is like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s much easier to make changes to a prototype than the real deal, which is why giving your feedback and making improvements at this stage will save you time, money and headaches later down the line.
So whilst you may be eager to see the app, software or website in the flesh, it’s vital not to rush the prototyping stage. Set aside adequate time and energy to give feedback, and you’ll reap the rewards in the long run!
Prototyping is an essential step in any product development, particularly digital platforms where user experience is key. The Code Guy is passionate about prototyping, but we know that time is of the essence when working on a project. Our rapid prototyping process ensures that you get a working model for your website or software with minimum delay so that we can get the ball rolling with the design and build of your solution as quickly as possible.
Got an idea that you want to bring to life? We’re all ears! To have a chat with our problem solvers, give us a call on 0207 438 2086, or email that.dude@thecodeguy.co.uk today.