What is Rapid Prototyping?
Rapid prototyping is an agile strategy used throughout the product development process. With this approach, 3-dimensional prototypes of a product or feature are created and tested to optimize characteristics like shape, size, and overall usability.
See Also: Rapid Experimentation
Rapid prototyping creates product simulations for testing and validation during the product development process, with multiple iterations generated during a short period based on user feedback and analysis.
How Does Prototyping Work?
Prototyping is a way to validate the hypothesis that a product will solve the problem it is intended to solve. Although not fully functional by any means, a prototype often “looks” real enough that potential users can interact with it and provide feedback.
If the feedback reveals that the prototype is pretty far off the mark, then the company saves weeks or months from building something that won’t work in the real world. At the same time, a positive reaction to a prototype indicates the product concepts are on the right track, and development should proceed.
The “rapid” part of this comes into play with the speed that the initial prototype can be produced, how quickly feedback can be gathered and synthesized, and how fast subsequent iterations can go through the same process. Teams must find a delicate balance between creating a prototype that looks real enough, so users are providing genuine reactions and feedback but without spending so much time on the prototype that the team is hesitant to throw away the work due to expended resources and opportunity costs of going back to square one.
What are Rapid Prototyping Techniques?
To collect bona fide prototype feedback, users shouldn’t even realize they’re not interacting with the real product; once they know it’s “just a prototype,” they will switch into “proactive suggestion” mode instead of providing authentic reactions, which are the true test of a prototype’s viability. This means having a clickable, usable prototype with real data, images, etc., even if it is still somewhat limited.
These high-fidelity prototypes look and behave like the real thing, which requires a few things to make them viable. First, product teams must think through all the use cases and paths users may pursue while interacting with the prototype. Then, real software development and UX expertise must be tapped to create a realistic, high-fidelity prototype—these won’t just be whipped up in an afternoon while spitballing ideas.
However, there are times when building out a fully visualized prototype is premature or too expensive, which is where wire-framing comes in. Product managers can create wireframes themselves to illustrate workflow concepts and basic UX concepts.
These can be used for actual user testing and useful to inform product development regarding what must be in place for a “functional enough” working prototype. While ordinarily product teams are told to leave implementation details to the development and UX teams, a wireframe-based prototype ensures the test includes every parameter the product team requires and shaves some time off the total process.
For product teams willing to settle for prototypes somewhere in between wireframes and fully functional, creating clickable sites (or facade prototyping) can be done quickly using various design and UX tools. These obviously won’t have tons of real data powering them behind the scenes, but they can provide trustworthy user feedback on many elements of the solution.
Rapid prototyping may also include creating multiple prototypes for side-by-side testing (or simultaneous testing by different sets of users). This lets teams settle once and for all if Option A really is superior to Option B.
Why Do Product Managers Need to Understand Rapid Prototyping?
Rapid prototyping allows product managers to “fast forward” to getting real-world customer feedback without expending precious product development resources on unproven and untested concepts. Hypotheses are no longer hypothetical, and you can truly test use cases with real users.
Getting actual customers to try things out and observing what works and what doesn’t is invaluable for creating products that match user needs and shortening the time to market. By validating assumptions and uncovering “gotchas” much earlier 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 they don’t receive things well.
Because rapid prototyping is incredibly iterative with short turnaround times from one test to the next, product teams must be prepared to provide input to the developers and UX folks spinning out prototypes, quickly analyze usage and feedback, and then recommend what should change in the next round. This requires attentiveness, responsiveness, and collaboration since the development team effectively idles until the decision is made on whether to spin up another prototype or move forward with full product development.
Rapid prototyping has the added benefit of prioritizing the features and functionality that truly matter to users—if the prototype does not include it, do you need to build it at all? The urgency of the process creates a pruning dynamic that focuses on what matters most.
Conclusion
Rapid prototyping can be an invaluable time-saver and disaster-avoider for product teams. With dependable feedback from users interacting with prototypes, product managers have qualitative validation of their assumptions or clear indicators that adjustments are required. This all helps reduce the risk of the final product failing to meet expectations.
Additionally, the externalized thinking that comes from the rapid prototyping process breaks down communication barriers and fills in the gaps. This ensures the development organization delivers what the product team envisioned. This also creates more efficiency in the overall product development process and puts the best possible product before paying customers and prospects.