Rapid prototyping is one of the most crucial parts of product design. Besides, it is the most important part of UX/UI design as well. And a lot of people ask why rapid prototyping is important? Well, there are tons of reasons why you should have a prototype of your digital product before launching. A prototype helps you understand your product properly. Moreover, it projects the performance of your product according to your requirement.
Before developing your website or a mobile app, you must consider building a prototype first. And this helps avoid any kind of product launch failure. Today a significant number of products have rapid prototyping, and it gives room for testing before launching. Therefore, prototypes are important.
What Is Rapid Prototyping?
Simply put, a Rapid prototype is a solid proof of a product concept. Moreover, it is an interactive process of product design with which you can interact with the product before development. It can be anything. It can be a website, software, an app or any other product. On the other hand, rapid prototyping is the process of building that prototype. So, the whole process is to help you see the physical state of your future product.
Product owners or stakeholders often ask for an interactive sample of their product before launch. But they don’t want to spend much before the final decision on the technical part. Therefore, prototypes help them see the technical and aesthetic feasibility of the product. The word ‘rapid’ indicates that the UX/UI design process is quick and cost-effective. Now you may guess why rapid prototyping is essential. However, we are not finished yet. You have got many things to know about the importance of rapid prototyping.
Why Rapid Prototyping Is Important
There are several reasons why the rapid prototyping process is done in the UX/UI design. It also has many advantages over other design approaches. We should also know that rapid prototyping is not a new concept. It has been practised for many years. But it was not as like as we do something today. Before computer programs or the internet, product designers used to build prototypes with wood, metal or clay.
On the other hand, currently, UX/UI designers use computer programs to create a prototype. And for digital products, it is the only appropriate method. Thanks to this design approach, we can test the design by real users before making the final move. So, this is why rapid prototyping is in demand. Now let’s learn in detail why rapid prototyping is important.
Better Communicates Design Ideas
With a prototype of your product, you can instantly know what would your product be like. Moreover, you can feel your product with the prototype. In this approach, UX/UI designers put together all your elements, colours and navigational possibilities. As a result, you can test your system even before you step into the development phase. When communication is everything, prototypes communicate the entire product design much better than any other design approach.
When we did not have software-based prototyping, we had paper prototypes. Designers did it by sketching and describing how it would work. But it had a lot of shortcomings. In particular, users could not demonstrate the product themselves. Whereas, with software-based prototypes, users can test the user experience properly.
Allows User Experience Testing
User experience testing is another reason why rapid prototyping is the best design approach. A successful product is a result of multiple experiments. And without experiments, digital products may not succeed. If you look at the present scenario, businesses around the world are launching thousands of websites and mobile apps daily, but how many of them become successful. Not many, most of them fails. So, the experiment is an integral part of a successful product design.
However, we can not run experiments unless we have a proper sample of the design. But we can not make an actual product to run experiments because it is too risky and costly. Therefore, designers needed a way to present actual products quickly without spending any big amount. Now with rapid prototyping, we can test digital products easily. Users can feel the product, give feedback, and designers can tweak the prototype for further experiment.
Evaluation of Technical Feasibility
Understanding the technical feasibility of a product is tough unless we see it. Till today, most of the products are developed without any design. So, developers or business owners encounter several technical shortcomings after the development. Therefore, the redevelopment phase still exists which leads to an extra development cost. Despite the extra cost, your product remains naïve. Eventually, the product launching fails, and your dream is shattered.
This is why rapid prototyping is a must if you want to have a market-ready product before launching. A prototype lets you understand the technical requirements. And depending on that requirement, your development team can move forward without missing any big part.
We hope you have the answer to why rapid prototyping is important in the UX/UI design process now. Yet, to recap, rapid prototyping is a design approach that communicates a design idea better. It also allows user testing and evaluating the technical feasibility of the product before moving to the development phase. Eventually, rapid prototyping leads developers to create market-ready products.
