Prototyping is a method of testing the hypothesis that a product will solve the problem for which it is intended. The company saves weeks or months by not spending time and resources developing something that won’t work in the real world based on the feedback received. However, a positive response to a prototype indicates that the product concepts are on the right track and that further development should be pursued.

In the product development process, rapid prototyping is a strategy that is used to keep things moving along quickly. This method involves the creation and testing of 3-dimensional prototypes of a product or feature in order to optimize characteristics such as shape, size, and overall usability. Rapid prototyping is the process of creating product simulations for testing and validation during the product development process. Multiple iterations are generated in a short period of time based on user feedback and analysis, with multiple iterations generated during a short period of time. The term “rapid” refers to the speed with which the initial prototype can be created, the speed with which feedback can be gathered and synthesized, and the speed with which subsequent iterations can go through the same process.

Teams must strike a delicate balance between creating a prototype that appears realistic enough to elicit genuine reactions and feedback from users while not devoting so much time to the prototype that the team is hesitant to throw away the work due to the time and resources expended and the opportunity costs of starting over. Users should not even be aware that they are not interacting with the real product in order to collect genuine prototype feedback; once they realize that they are not interacting with the real product, they will switch into “proactive suggestion” mode instead of providing authentic reactions, which are the true test of a prototype’s viability. In other words, you should have a clickable, usable prototype that contains real data, images, and so on, even if it is still somewhat limited.

These high-fidelity prototypes look and behave exactly like the real thing, which necessitates a few modifications in order for them to be commercially viable. First and foremost, product teams must consider all of the possible use cases and paths that users might take while interacting with the prototype. Afterwards, real software development and user experience expertise must be enlisted in order to create a realistic, high-fidelity prototype; these won’t be created in an afternoon while brainstorming ideas. When building out a fully visualized prototype is either too early or too expensive, wire-framing can be used instead, as shown in the following example. Product managers can create wireframes for their own use in order to illustrate workflow concepts and fundamental user interface concepts.

These can be used for real-world user testing and can be used to inform product development about the features that must be included in a working prototype that is “functional enough.”While product teams are typically instructed to leave implementation details to the development and user experience (UX) teams, a wireframe-based prototype ensures that the test includes every parameter required by the product team while also shortening the overall process.

Creating clickable sites (also known as facade prototyping) can be done quickly using a variety of design and user experience tools for product teams who are willing to settle for prototypes that are somewhere in the middle of wireframe and fully functional. Although they will not have a plethora of real data guiding them behind the scenes, they can provide reliable user feedback on a variety of aspects of the solution. Creating multiple prototypes for side-by-side testing (or simultaneous testing by different sets of users) is another aspect of rapid prototyping.

Rapid prototyping enables product managers to “move forward” to obtain real-world customer feedback without devoting valuable product development resources to concepts that have not been proven and tested. Hypotheses are no longer considered hypothetical, and use cases can now be thoroughly tested with real users. Having real customers try things out and observe what works and what doesn’t is invaluable for developing products that meet user needs and reducing the time it takes to get a product to market. When assumptions and “gotchas” are discovered early in the process, product teams can move forward with confidence that the final product will find an audience… or go back to the drawing board if things don’t go over well with the audience.

Because rapid prototyping is extremely iterative, with short turnaround times from one test to the next, product teams must be prepared to provide input to the developers and user experience professionals who are spinning out prototypes, quickly analyze usage and feedback, and then recommend what should change in the next round. It is necessary to be attentive, responsive, and collaborative during this time because the development team is effectively idle until the decision is made on whether to spin up another prototype or proceed with full product development at this point. Additionally, rapid prototyping has the advantage of prioritizing the features and functionality that are truly important to users—if the prototype does not include a feature or functionality, do you really need to build it at all?