A prototype is the bridge connecting your imagination to reality. It is innovative models, systems, and components that solve a market problem. Designers and engineers develop different types of prototypes to test concepts across industries.
Understanding prototypes helps you decide which one to use before creating a new product. Prototyping is a powerful tool because it enables you to organize your products around the needs of your audience. You can click here for high-fidelity printed parts in a wide array of colors and material properties. This article focuses on different prototypes and their applications.
Types of Prototypes Explained
Prototypes are created for physical and digital products. Digital products are integral to entrepreneurial operations worldwide. Prototypes can range from experiential and narrative models to visual representations of digital products.
On the other hand, physical products share the same concept as digital product prototypes.
1. Paper Prototypes
Paper prototyping plays an integral position in design processes. It’s cheap and an easy way to create shape concepts. Everyone can make rough sketches of ideas, and you’ll later on have annotated hard-copy evidence of what the end product will look like. You can build overviews with paper prototypes, and in minutes, you can tell if the ideas work.
While relatively simple, paper prototypes utilize in-house design and art skills to build product mockups. Although they can be made with paper, you can also use foam core or cardboard.
2. Sketches and Diagrams
This is a low-fidelity type of prototype. Sketches and diagrams communicate the direction of your design to potential end users. You can revise these prototypes, allowing the stakeholders to offer input that can be precisely captured in subsequent forms.
Simple sketches are often used to convey the system devices’ general volume and layout. A diagram can show an electrical line, demonstrating the relationship of system elements, but doesn’t provide a buildable plan. Sketches and diagrams often function to build a dialogue.
3. Feasibility
If you’re creating a product that has never been done, you should utilize a feasibility prototype. This prototyping can be complex because it involves experimenting and predicting outcomes. It’s an evolution of technology that’s disrupting manufacturing industries.
For example, auto manufacturers used feasibility prototypes to test the idea of electric and hybrid vehicles. They experimented with integrating both electric and gas motors. The aerospace industry can use feasibility prototyping when testing new aircraft models or components.
4. Horizontal Prototypes
Horizontal prototyping displays a wide range of features within a system or product. It presents the overall user interface without implementing all complex functionalities. This prototype is often used during the initial stages of analysis. While the screens remain interactive, features and buttons will have little or no processing behind them.
A horizontal prototype reflects the breadth analysis of your project without going deep into details. So they can help you understand the range of capabilities across the system. Besides, horizontal prototypes help facilitate requirements dialogues and design decisions.
5. Clickthrough Prototypes
Designs are continually modified, opinions fly high, and individuals continue to present their ideas. So, it’s safe to use a high-fidelity prototype like Clickthrough for capturing conceptual designs. A Clickthrough prototype links several screens through hotspots.
The clickthrough prototype allows you to navigate a design rather than following a predictive path. This prototype is helpful in late testing, when you want to finalize your digital design before investing the resources.
6. Vertical Prototypes
Vertical prototyping is the opposite of horizontal prototyping. Unlike horizontal prototypes, which are narrow in functionalities and broad in features, vertical prototypes are narrow in features and deep in functionalities. They’re highly focused on every minute detail of a system.
With detailed diagrams, vertical prototypes provide opportunities to get feedback from targeted end users. Small businesses rely on customer feedback and reviews to drive a strategy. For example, a website design has several groups to consider, such as vendors, clients, or employees.
7. Functional Prototypes
Both functional and working models occur towards the final stage of product development. Functional models concern how the product will work. Designers use functional prototypes to gain feedback from users.
A new smartphone is a good example of a functional prototype. It could have core features, a functional camera, and a touchscreen. After the targeted audience tests it, a designer can gather invaluable information about software and hardware performance.
8. Wireframes
Wireframes are mid-fidelity prototypes in which diagrams convey the layout of features in digital products like apps. Designers can create wireframe prototypes using software or by hand to map precise shapes. Wireframe prototypes are also used in the initial planning stages of app and website designs.
The aim is to establish a product structure, such as navigation, interaction, and elements. The elements are created with simple boxes, placeholder text, and simple lines, prioritizing the information hierarchy.
9. Mockups
A mockup is a high-fidelity, static representation of a design version. It aims to display aesthetics, such as topography, images, color, and schemes, without providing interactive features.
Mockups help in finalizing the visual aspects while securing approvals from stakeholders. They show stakeholders what’s planned to get their thoughts and win their support. With the visual features of the products, huge improvements or minor tweaks can still be made.
10. Video Prototypes
A video prototype illustrates how users will interact with a system. The technique is similar to video brainstorming. These scenarios showcase how users might interact with future technology. They may also incorporate a variety of off-line or computer-based prototyping.
11. Minimum Viable Product
An MVP is a high-fidelity version of a final product that provides enough functionality to solve a challenge. It only includes the most fundamental functionalities to display the core value of a product. The aim is to gather information from customers to identify areas of improvement.
Wrapping Up
Selecting the right prototype may be daunting, but it’s integral to engineering design. If you follow best practices, the process can become seamless. Start by identifying your target audience, functionalities to be tested, and key features. Depending on the relevance and complexity of the product, you might even need more than one prototype.