Prototyping Overview

Prototyping is all about creating working models of a system so that conceptual ideas can be 'road tested', alternatives explored and user feedback gathered at an early stage.

There are a number of different approaches to creating and working with prototypes, ranging from simplistic paper prototypes or wireframes, to fully featured, bespoke slices of larger systems.

We use interactive prototypes as a key part of our protoSMART™ methodology, which formalises the prototyping process in a measurable, managed fashion, and allows for the requirements and functional specification to be influenced by early user feedback.

For more information about Software Prototyping, please read our new article: What Is Software Prototyping?

Shaping Requirements

Determining the functionality of a system is a process that needs careful thought; interactive prototyping helps by providing a vehicle with which to gather actual user feedback about the effectiveness and usability of a new system. It is all too common to see a new system fail its users because those users were not involved in discussions about how that system would be used. Prototyping provides us with tangible models which help users visualise possibilities and identify failings. This feedback is then used to refine the planning process.

The power of prototyping is not only restricted to the planning stages, however; even with the best management and preparation, things do change and oftentimes these changes compromise the successful delivery of a software system. We can again make full use of interactive prototyping to help evaluate the impact of change and provide useful and timely feedback from actual users. By doing this we can ensure that any such change is properly scoped and therefore managed.