Whatever design a company wants to build, making a prototype and MVP is essential. You can not overlook any of them if you are about to start product development. 
But when you are new to the market, you might wonder what is prototyping in design? Why does a prototype have a significant role in designing? What difference does it make to your overall product development process?
If you have such questions in mind, this post will help you clear all of your doubts. 

What is a Prototype in design?

Prototyping is an experimental process used by the designing team. You can apply various ideas into actual forms, starting from paper to digital. The team makes prototypes of different accuracy levels and tests them on targeted audiences. 
The prototype can refine and validate your designs. So, you can launch a product with a design that suits your brand perfectly.
Prototyping is a procedure used in all design disciplines. Whether it’s architects, engineers, industrial or service designers, everyone tests their designs with prototypes.
The importance of prototype in designingPrototyping is one of the most rewarding things you can do in the designing process of a new product. 

​Identify design issues at an early stage

People envision many things in their minds that look amazing initially. But when you put it on paper or a computer screen, it emerges as a terrible idea. 
For example, you are designing any web form and visualizing form fields in mind. When you sketch it, you will definitely spot various issues. So you decide to remove some design parts. You adjust the layout of several input fields to make a user flow more improved. 
With just a simple prototype, you can easily determine your design flows. It can let you make changes to resolve designing issues before launching the end product. 

Iterate rapidly on design ideas

With prototypes, you can be more iterative with your design ideas. It will help to improve design concepts rapidly. 
While designing a web form, you can validate your solutions for the issues you have found. Assess whether the solution is now the better version or worse. Additionally, you can move things around and tweak something as per your preferences. 
If everything does not seem good, you can sketch another version and keep going with the same strategy.  

Fast comparison of design varieties 

User Interface is all about providing efficient ways for users to get their tasks done. 
To identify the best solution, you will have to come up with different ideas. Comparison of different web page layouts is as easy as ABC with prototyping. 
Whether it’s a tabbed navigation menu or a list of vertically arranged links, it depends on 

• The information architecture your content has
• The goal of your user when interfacing with your UI
• Quantity of the links 
• The wording of your links

Gather better feedback

Describing your designing ideas simply by words is quite difficult to understand for others. It confuses people and negatively affects the feedback you receive. 
But with a prototype, everything seems easy. People can quickly acknowledge your concept. More clear concepts result in more effective feedback. 
When you share your prototype with engineers and developers, they can easily identify any issues. They can also suggest alternative solutions according to their industry experience. 

A prototype can be a presentational tool

Building a web-based product needs the collaboration of multiple people. Except for the personal project development process.
Various designers think that sharing prototypes with clients will confuse them. But prototyping your design concepts can be an effective way to depict your ideas. 
You can practice caution while sharing your prototype. You can use interactive and high-fidelity prototyping tools to represent prototypes. 

Perform user testing in advance

An essential source of feedback is users. With the prototype, you can perform user testing at the initial stage of a project. You do not have to wait till the end.  helpful 
However, a low-fidelity prototype can’t identify the implications that a finished design can. 
But on the positive side, performing user tests on prototypes is efficient. You can determine deficiencies from more widespread usability issues such as user flow, content categorization, etc.

Promote collaboration

As mentioned before, web-based products need the involvement of multiple people. A prototype can get people engaged early in the process. 
Your clients can have an overview of what you are developing for them. They give you feedback so you can decide before guaranteeing anything. It will save a lot of time from revising everything later on. 
Teammates can also provide feedback and share their issues before the design gets completed. 

More opportunities to work concurrently 

Prototypes help team members to start working on some of the UI components even if the design is not finished yet. 
Let’s say your app needs to report information to its users. So your server-side programmers can start making database and database queries. It will help you to fetch required data whether your UI got finalized or not.

Get a visual guide to the finished product 

It is quite easy to develop things when you have an idea of how your end result will look like. 
When you are,

• Clear with your goals
• Everyone agrees with the planned outcome 
• Design concepts have been validated in advance 
• You will get a direct path towards the finish line. 

Prototyping is pocket-friendly, quick, and easy

The prototype incorporates seamlessly into almost all the design processes. All designers start with some form of a prototype. No matter whether a prototype is rough paperwork of 40 seconds or a professional one. 
There are various tools you can easily integrate with your existing design process. Starting from pencil and paper to web tools, prototyping is becoming a quick and easy process. 

Summing Up

By now, you are all aware of the importance of prototyping in designing. Creating a prototype will reveal all your faults and errors. So you can lead towards a shining future and success. 
If you simply spend a bit of time making a prototype, you will definitely save a lot of time in designing as well as development. 

Source: https://bit.ly/3kpqBHn