A process for visualizing ideas. Prototyping is the process that leads to the development of a prototype. A prototype is the rough draft of a desired product. Whether it is a digital or a physical product is irrelevant. Practice shows that prototyping can also be used in the development of services. This article contains information about the different types and processes of prototyping.
What is prototyping? Definition and types
The business world has become more fast-paced in recent decades. Due to digitalization and the increasing emergence of disruptive start-ups, the demands on the product development process have risen. The end product must accurately meet the user's expectations, otherwise they will find an alternative on the market. The competition is immense.
More and more companies are therefore focusing on a fast product development process in order to benefit from the first mover advantage on the market - or to prevent a product that has been developed over several months from no longer meeting the current requirements of users when it is released on the market. Prototyping is used to achieve a fast and target-oriented production process.
Companies use prototyping to visualize a product or at least a sub-component of it. They then obtain feedback from their customers or draw their own initial conclusions from the development of the prototype. Based on the information from the feedback or through independent findings, companies gain an impression of the strengths and weaknesses of their prototype at an early stage of development and can take them into account in further development.
The prototyping method is popular in software development. It can also be used in the production of physical products. In this area, the use of 3D printers in prototype construction has become popular in recent years. Services can also be tested using prototyping in order to be further developed. There are different types of prototyping, which are more or less suitable for prototyping depending on the area of application.
Throwaway Prototyping
This method is used in the earliest stages of product development. The aim is to visualize basic ideas particularly quickly in order to test a core function or a sub-component of the desired product. After feedback, the prototype is discarded.
Throwaway prototyping is often used in software development. If you want basic user feedback on the software, you are well advised to design the prototype in a lean way, otherwise users will tend to give aesthetic feedback and feedback on the software's functionalities will fall short.
Rapid prototyping
The aim of this method is to quickly create a prototype. This method is best known for the development of physical products. For example, a prototype can be created in a 3D printer in a very short time based on a technical template.
Accelerated prototyping can also be used in software development, for example by automatically generating codes in order to obtain initial impressions of the building blocks of software.
Functional prototyping
Basically, a prototype is characterized by the fact that it is a very basic version of the end product and has no functionalities. Nevertheless, companies sometimes develop prototypes of software and equip them with at least some functions. This allows them to test individual functions of the software in isolation, thereby laying the foundation for the development of a minimum viable product (MVP).
Advantages and challenges of prototyping: Concretizing ideas with prototyping
Prototyping has the following advantages:
- Concretize ideas quickly
- Identify the suitability and potential problems of products and ideas at an early stage
- Low effort and low costs in the initial stages of production
- Prototypes can be modified quickly in order to react to short-term changes in market conditions and customer requirements
- Challenge: the courage to innovate
The overarching goal of prototyping is to concretize ideas. In the definition of prototyping mentioned at the beginning, we explained that customers expect a product that exactly meets their requirements.
In view of the rapid change in customer requirements in the digitalized business world, it is important to bring products to market quickly in order to meet requirements. The construction of prototypes is almost indispensable on the way there. This is because prototypes provide companies with initial feedback on what problems the product or a sub-component of it may pose and how the prototype can be optimized.
In the further course of product development, the findings from prototyping are used to develop more mature versions of the prototype. In this way, companies gradually approach a market-ready end product through an iterative approach to product development. Companies obtain feedback from customers on each prototype and communicate each development step within the team in order to test and optimize their ideas.
Thanks to the rapid iteration loops with fundamentally designed prototypes and product versions, companies achieve a faster and more cost-efficient market entry. In prototyping, companies can react quickly to short-term changes in customer requirements and thus ensure a high degree of customization to customer needs when the end product is launched on the market.
The only remaining challenge in prototyping is the sometimes low willingness to innovate in companies. Presenting customers with an immature prototype and actively encouraging them to provide feedback is rather unusual, especially for non-innovative companies. In view of the possibility of cost savings, the innovative and disruptive business models of start-ups as a threat and the generally increasing importance of innovation management, companies should be open to prototyping.
Prototype: Examples from software development and from the development of physical products
Examples of prototyping are the click dummy and the paper prototype.
The click dummy is an example of prototyping in software development. It is a rough version of a digital application that has rudimentary functions so that users can interact with this version, at least to a limited extent. The click dummy is categorized as a low-fidelity prototype. This is a variant of a prototype that has not yet been fully designed and only serves to test the functional suitability of a product.
In the development of physical products, extremely trivial prototypes are occasionally used. One example is the paper prototype. This prototype is made of paper and illustrates an idea very roughly. The paper prototype is an example of how cost-saving and simple prototyping can be used to visualize an idea.
Prototyping is used to test an idea. The idea can be software, an object or a service, among other things. The aim of each prototype is to obtain feedback from customers and test the suitability of the intended end product to satisfy customer needs. Each step in prototyping leads to the approximation of a market-ready product. Since a prototype is extremely rudimentary and normally little or no functionality is tested on it, prototyping is usually followed by the design of a minimum viable product (MVP).
FAQ
Why are prototypes so important?
Prototypes make it possible to identify fundamental problems in the early stages of product development. With this knowledge, optimizations in product development can be made at an early stage and errors in end products are more likely to be avoided.
Where is prototyping used?
Prototyping is most widespread in software development and for physical products. Less common, but also possible and sometimes occurring, is prototyping for testing and optimizing a service.
Is prototyping agile?
Prototyping is one of the agile methods in companies because it is a flexible and proactive approach to product development.