Macadamian Blog

Part 6: Winning Prototypes

This is the sixth in a series of posts on Prototypes by Mary Piontkowski and Martin Larochelle. Read the introductory post, Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4 

Stay True To The Design

Donʼt cut corners on the user experience of your prototype! Prototypes are made to convince buyers, stakeholders or investors, and nothing convinces better than stunning design and overall experience.

Even a very technical prototype to demonstrate the use of a new low-level networking protocol will have better success if it is visually appealing and easy to interact with. But in the rush to produce a working prototype, it can be very tempting to cut corners on elements of the design in the working prototype. A UI control that’s not properly aligned wonʼt cut it here. Never commit to crappy-looking visuals with the expectation that youʼll go back and adjust them later. Get it perfect the first time!

When in a crunch timeframe, designers and developers should be communicating to ensure that standard controls provided by the OS or UI framework are used as much as possible, rather than custom UI controls (unless the goal of the project is to use a new control). Custom controls can take up to 10 times longer to implement.

If the development team is behind on implementing a supporting part of the design, consider using a PNG image for the presentation of the prototype. Depending on the strategy and goals you set out at the beginning, a static image that accurately represents the end-product may be a better choice than being late or presenting a demo that may be interactive but simply doesn’t look right yet.

Further Reading
Winning Prototypes: How to Capture Hearts & Minds of Stakeholders
A whitepaper by Martin Larochelle, Mary Pionkowski, and Didier Thizy.