What is prototyping?
Simply put, prototyping is the process of creating a barebones version of a product, website, or app with the goal of testing the most basic assumptions and ideas regarding it.
If you want a more in-depth understanding of this topic, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: What are the benefits of prototyping?
The biggest benefits of prototyping are as follows:
- It helps increase your odds of success. Testing before proceeding with development significantly increases your odds of developing a product, website, or app that your target customers actually want.
- It helps minimise wasted resources. It is much cheaper and less time-consuming to modify (or completely scrap) something unfinished than developing a product, website, or service to completion first before realizing it is no good or it is not what your target customers want.
For more advantages of prototyping, check this out from the Mockplus blog.
Question #2: What are the disadvantages of prototyping?
The biggest disadvantages of prototyping are as follows:
It can result in inaccurate analyses. Reviewing just the most basic parts of the intended product, website, or app can lead you and your team to draw inaccurate conclusions. So, you need to make sure not to fall into this trap throughout the development process.
It can result in user confusion. Not all users understand the concept of a prototype. You need to make sure your initial reviewers know exactly that they are looking at something that is far from finished—and explain to them what the finished product, website, or app would be like—so they do not end up dismissing it right from the get-go.
It can take a lot of time (and money) if you are not careful. Again, the goal of prototyping is to simply test the most basic assumptions and ideas about a product, website, or app. You do not have to spend too many resources on it. In fact, in some cases, a simple sketch would do.
Question #3: What is the difference between prototyping and building a minimum viable product?
The biggest difference between prototyping and building a minimum viable product is the level of completeness of the product, website, or app.
As we have seen earlier, a prototype is a barebones representation of what the finished product, website, or app is supposed to be. It often has very few (if at all) actual working features.
Your goal at the prototyping stage, then, is to simply find out what your target users think of the concept and see if you are on the right track—and then make the necessary adjustments if you are not.
An example of a prototype would be a landing page that just shows where the elements are supposed to go without any actual images, copy, or working links in place.
A minimum viable product, in contrast, is a functional but incomplete version of the product, website, or app that usually just has one to two core features. It is meant to be used for initial user testing so you can get feedback from your target users and figure out how to make the finished product, website, or app more marketable.
An example of this would be a chatbot with only one of the many intended conversation branches active meant to give target users an idea of how it would work once completed.
Question #4: What is the difference between prototyping and releasing a beta version?
The main difference between prototyping and releasing a beta version is also the level of completeness of the product, website, or app.
We already know what a prototype is, so let us go straight to the beta version.
A beta version of a product, website, or app is designed to get feedback from a bigger chunk of your actual target users so you can make any necessary final refinements before your target launch date. This means it has to be as close as possible to the final version.
An example of this would be beta version video games, which are practically finished except for a few bugs and issues that still need to be ironed out before the official release version is launched.