How to create UI prototypes? What type of UI prototype should be chosen?
When you are designing a solution to a problem, what kind of prototype should you choose? Or, how should you create the prototype? Do you find yourselves asking these questions?
Prototypes hold a crucial role in developing the best solution strategy for a project. Most people, directly move ahead with implementation without proper prototyping stages. This appears to give a feeling that things are progressing faster in the initial stages, but ends up bringing in more work towards the later stages. But, progressing through enough thought process and prototyping stages will make the complete process of designing the solution easier and better. It also reduces issues towards the final stages of the implementation. In this blog, I will be discussing the types of prototyping and how to implement them.
Let’s differentiate the prototypes based on completeness and detail. There are three types of prototypes:-
- Low fidelity prototyping
- High fidelity prototyping
These three types represent a scale of completeness or closeness to the final product, which differs depending on the type of solutions and needs of the situation.
Low fidelity prototyping
Low-fidelity prototypes allow us to quickly and inexpensively test our ideas, so we can validate our hypotheses and improve our solutions. To maximize their effectiveness, it’s important for us to know which low-fidelity prototypes we should use, their pros and cons, as well as how to create them. Here, let’s look at some of the best practices of five of the most common low-fidelity prototypes: sketches, paper prototypes, Lego prototypes, wireframes and Wizard of Oz prototypes.
Low-fidelity prototypes are great tools to use during the early stages of the design process, when we want to create and test as many ideas as possible. Since they require less time to create, we are less likely to get attached to them, allowing us to discard bad ideas more easily than high-fidelity prototypes do.
Sketches are a great tool for designers and non-designers alike. They are incredibly easy to create and even easier to discard. Sketches are extremely cheap and fast to create, allowing you to sketch out a large number of ideas in a short amount of time. They are disposable, so you won’t get attached to sketches that turn out to be bad ideas.
Use sketches in early, divergent stages of your design process. Sketch out your rough ideas so you can discuss them with team-mates. You can also sketch diagrams and mind maps in order to illustrate a system, process or the structure of your ideas. Sketch the touch points that affect a user’s journey, and then identify how they relate to one another.
Always sketch out your ideas, rather than store them in your head! Design thinking emphasizes a bias towards action. Whenever you have an idea, sketch it out, no matter how silly it seems — you will be able to evaluate it much better when it’s on paper rather than in your head. Use the right amount of detail: remember that a sketch should be rough and quick. Don’t spend extra time adding details which are not required for your quick sketch. Draw diagrams to map out complex ideas or use cases, where many factors and players affect one another.
Journey maps, behavior maps, system flow diagrams and a range of other mapping techniques can help you to flesh out how your idea can be implemented with all the parties involved, so you can evaluate its feasibility.
High fidelity prototypes
Creating high-fidelity (hi-fi) prototypes is a thrilling process, it allows teams to bring their ideas to life and make them as similar as possible to the final product. They are usually created when the team has a solid understanding of what they are going to build and need to test it with real users or get final-design approval from stakeholders.
The basic characteristics of high-fidelity prototyping include:
Visual design: High-fidelity prototypes are designed to look as realistic and detailed as possible. All interface elements, spacing, and graphics look just like a real app or website. Content: Designers use real or similar-to-real content. The prototype includes most or all of the content that will appear in the final design. Interactivity: Prototypes are highly realistic in their interactions, making them fun and interactive to test.
The benefits of high-fidelity prototyping include:
Meaningful feedback during usability testing. High-fidelity prototypes often look like real products to users. This means that during usability testing sessions, test participants will be more likely to behave naturally — as if they were interacting with the real product. Testability of specific UI elements or interactions. With hi-fi interactivity, it’s possible to test graphical elements like affordance or specific interactions, such as animated transitions and microinteractions. Easy buy-in from clients and stakeholders. This type of prototype is perfect for demonstrations to stakeholders. It gives clients and potential investors a clear idea of how a product is supposed to work. High-fidelity prototypes are sure to get people excited about your design in ways that a lo-fi, bare-bones prototype can’t.
The only downside to high-fidelity prototyping is that it can be more costly, both in terms of time and finances, than low-fidelity prototyping. But the end result is worth it!
Takeaway
There are different types of prototypes used in UI design, specifically low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes. Low-fidelity prototypes are quick and inexpensive to create and are useful during the early stages of the design process when testing multiple ideas.
Sketches are a common form of low-fidelity prototypes and are easy to create and discard. High-fidelity prototypes are more detailed and realistic, and are usually created when the team has a solid understanding of what they are going to build. These prototypes are good for usability testing and getting buy-in from stakeholders, but they can be more costly than low-fidelity prototypes. Please do leave claps and save if your found this article useful.
