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The most expensive mistake in a digital product is building something nobody understands or nobody needs. It is almost always discovered late, after the development budget is spent.
A prototype is a simulated version of your product or website that people can click through and test without production code. It helps you make decisions with evidence before you pay for development.
Types of prototypes
- Low fidelity. Sketches or grayscale wireframes. They define structure and flow, and take hours to make.
- High fidelity. Final design in Figma with interactions. It looks and behaves almost like the real product, which makes it ideal for user testing and for showing to clients or investors.
- Functional prototype. A first version with real but limited code. With AI tools you can have one in days, and it lets you validate with real data.
What a prototype validates
Whether people understand your offer. Whether they find what they need without help. Whether they complete the main task, like buying, booking or signing up. And which doubts come up along the way. Five users testing a prototype are enough to catch most usability issues.
What I learned building my own products
When my team lost access to its project management tool, I designed and built Onion, a simple kanban app for agile teams. Before writing the first line of code, I prototyped the main views and tested them with the team. That let me leave out features that seemed important but nobody used.
In larger teams, a prototype does another job: it aligns business, design and engineering on what will be built before weeks of work are committed. A clickable screen settles discussions that drag on for days in a requirements document.
How to start
- Define the main task the user needs to complete.
- Sketch the minimum flow to complete it.
- Build the prototype at the fidelity you need to test it.
- Test it with five people from your audience and note where they get stuck.
- Adjust and repeat before moving to development.
Product design and prototypes for your project
I design prototypes for websites, apps and digital products, from wireframes to functional prototypes. I also work on UX/UI design, product consulting and SEO, so what you build can also be found. If you have an idea and want to validate it before investing in development, reach out through dantecurin.com.