May be you sit in one of those meetings where a variety of stakeholders are arguing about how to attain user-centric interface. Every stakeholder is busy throwing their own ideas. They are not reaching to the position where one can have clear picture what another is talking about. You can see frustration on everybody’s face. Have you experienced the same? Instead of flipping coin to reach to a conclusion, Prototype might be your/project’s life saver. Let me explain today why I believe Prototype is a vital component of the website design process.

As per Wikipedia, It is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process to be replicated or learned from. The word prototype comes from the Latin words proto, meaning original, and typus, meaning form or model. A prototype is a rudimentary working model of a product or information system, usually built for demonstration purposes or as part of the development process. For example, a company might want to create an innovative website. A creative team works on design features, typically producing couple of ideas to illustrate how the end web page will look like. This prototype or model can be used to gather stakeholder feedback to ensure that their requirements have been met, ultimately to deliver successful projects/products.

All of us have experienced that when we use visual aids while giving a speech, it can be more powerful and effective. ‘Don’t explain, show them’. For audience it becomes easier to connect with the message what speaker is conveying. Single visual can be much more powerful than an extremely long conversation. Same logic applies with Prototype. It provides valuable insight to look-&-feel and general workflow of application. A mockup is, simply put, a visual representation of your interpretation of the customer needs.

Prototype can be as simple & quick as on paper (shown in example below) or it can be rich and detailed through using variety of free as well as paid softwares/tools.

Doesn’t matter if you are working on large corporation 500+ web pages project or 10-pages small personal website, one should not avoid this process. Why? Following are few of many pragmatic reasons:
• Early visibility gives users/stakeholders an idea what the final project/product will look like
• Check for usability flaws and business to confirm their requirements
• Extremely useful to visualize project requirements to tie together to user needs
• Encourage active participation between stakeholders
• Quick feedback is extremely helpful in further project-life-cycle
• Helpful to refine potential risk associated with the project
• Cost effective as it prevents rework, save time, and most importantly budget
• All stakeholders can be on the same page. I have seen where Client/Business cannot understand creative team language and it becomes extremely convenient.
• Save implementation cycle time

Use iterative development approach while developing prototype and also build it as early as possible. It is beneficial to stakeholders who are working on the project – business, creative team, implement team, etc. Prototyping can avoid lot of frustration throughout the life-cycle of the project.

User acceptance can make or break an application/project. Then why not get users’ feedback early?