There are so many moving parts involved when you are in the process of evaluating a website or product. On a daily basis, I work with interfaces means how people are interacting with their devices, not just websites. The field of interaction design is very large and complex, and many things I could be talking about but today I’m focusing on few user interaction key principles.

Just a while ago I was in a process of usability evaluation for this website’s interaction design. What became visible by looking at the interfaces that it failed in all essential principles of User interaction design. I am not talking about the behavior of the interface, today I am talking about behavior of people.

• Consistency
• visibility
• feedback

People are very sensitive to change. Changes in behavior and appearance draws negative attention. That what exactly was happening in here. The elements on the page was literally dancing from one spot to another. When I quickly click through these pages, one thing became prominent that my eyes were not drawn to content, but instead was drawn to the objects that are moving around. This inconsistency was attracting attention, in a negative way. Obliviously, this is not an efficient user experience. There are many additional aspects of inconsistencies that can draw negative attention. The list can go on and on such as colors, layout, shapes, typography, alignment, etc. we need to be very careful in those details to achieve harmony. It is very important that we define styles and patterns and we stick to them.

When we want users to be efficient and task focused, then it’s very important to have visibility. To engage users with design, you need to make sure that all interaction or choices they have given are not hidden. Few things were happening in this case. On one page, there were two images. but, one of them was actually a video. There was no visual clue was given such could be an ‘arrow’ so that users can understand the difference between image and video. When I mouse over it, all video controls appeared. It’s vital to remember that we’re designing experience, not scavenger hunt. If they are not aware there are interactivity exists, then they will not find what they are looking for or unable to complete their tasks. Another factor was affecting visibility was that content on few pages was underneath the two-fold area or sometimes it calls ‘falls bottom’. There were three important modules was hidden in the bottom of the page. Not all users scrolls down the entire page, the result you might miss the opportunity to fully engage them and able to finish their task. There are many ways you can restructure the content so that all modules appears above the fold.

Feedback is essential. Users should be aware where they are in the process, what’s happening, what might happen in future, or whether or not something has finished. In current interfaces, there was absolutely no indication was provided throughout the site. not when you are in process of becoming member of that particular site or not while downloading a file from the site. as a user, I would like to see what I am downloading, how far I am in the process, how many minutes or file size are remaining, link or option to cancel if I may wish to cancel during I’m downloading, as well as when I finished downloading. Never fail to acknowledge whatever actions users might have performed, otherwise this might lead to unnecessary repetition of action users just performed. Without doubt this not a good user experience.

Well, there are more additional principles I can briefly talk about. May be some other time? 🙂

I was talking to my friend yesterday. He wanted to buy Turbo Tax software as Tax season is approaching. I suggested him to purchase from Amazon website. I just said it so naturally, but after a while I asked myself a question – is it a website or web application (app)? What do you say while talking to your friend – have you checked bla bla on Facebook website or Facebook app? The website and we app idiom is blurring with all technology enhancements. Do you feel the same way?

If you fail to come up with a concrete set of differentiators right away then keep reading.

What is a website? The core nature of website is still informational. Example of these could be any corporate or personal websites. Even though, all dynamic content that are may be generated through content Management System (CMS). Example: CNN.com, NFL.com, etc. Or any corporate targeted marketing website where one webpage leads to another or it requires you to fill up any forms, etc.

On the other hand, what is web application? The core nature of we app is interactive or dynamic.
Basically web app describes following in general:
• Allows accomplishing users’ goal by performing action through functions.
• Allows you to run app without having to install in your personal computers.
• Requires any browser and internet connection
• Stores data in the cloud so no need to worry about installing apps on your computer
• Requires no extra hard drive space or your computer running slow due to heavy app running
• Example: Google Docs, Gmail, etc.

Take a quick look at my above differentiation outline. I used to just remember only one thing—use your website to talk to your site visitors, and use Web apps to interact with your site visitors. However, now-a-days defining the two is a slippery task.

Lately, website and web apps look and work just the same. For non-technical users it’s really hard to identify the difference between both. Personally as a User Interface designer, I know it’s not an easy question to answer, especially when you examine existing web presences that have been around a long time and have evolved, such as Amazon. Designing User Interfaces, website vs. web app, one could apply many approaches, techniques and principles of User Interface design in general, but that’s not the focus of this blog.

Another example I gave above are CNN or NFL. However, when you start to categorize the above way, you find nearly every site is hybrid. CNN now became interactive means it includes sharing and commenting capabilities, all of which are web apps.

In nutshell, is it safe to say all web apps are websites (or a part of it) but not vice-versa? Interesting – isn’t it? Perhaps, the difference is lost. What would I ask my friend next time – did you read the latest news on CNN website or CNN app? If you get a clear set of definitions, please enlighten me.

Phew! Regurgitating 2012. The design trends grown rapidly over the past year. Amazing changes happened so thought of capturing what I had witnessed last year. Following are few of the cultural shifts I have observed:

Responsive interface design
One of the most exciting trend in application and site design today.
The power of responsive interface design allows page elements to respond quickly to behave and response as per users’ device. Everyone may not know this name but they experience the awesome interfaces that had shifted their mind sets, which are delivering optimal user experience by displaying information that is appropriate to different devices (computers, tablets and smart phones, etc), screen resolutions, sizes, and states they are using. Increasingly, we’ll need to integrate users’ real-world situations into user interfaces.

Designing for touchscreen
The touch screen is one of the easiest to use and most intuitive technology that allows users to navigate a system by touch responsive surface. This technology developed back in 1960’s but gaining popularity and defined the 2000s. the major shift in how world users’ interacts with computers and notebooks. Apple gets the hype, but not the market share. Whatever happens, the design of touchscreen interfaces will continue to drive design and development moving forward, shifted from traditionally mouse-driven interfaces.

Content and image slideshows
Eureka moment. Spotted the subsequent popularity of slideshows all over on the web to display content and unique features. Just the ease of using this feature. These galleries are perfect for demonstrating a quick glimpse of inner-page content. Even the newspaper industry acknowledged what users want and started incorporating user centric approach. Recently, USA Today website rolled out with having an impressive user experience; innovative approach of sliding news. They put visual firsts; gave a new life to dead online advertising model by incorporating cool slideshows.

Tons of freebies
Honestly you know this as well. Anything and everything you want for free is right out there on the internet. Designers were never shy to spread and share their knowledge with other designers but now it has become popular trend. Free tutorials, layouts, interfaces, logos, banners, etc etc etc. Initially there were few communities were spreading goodies but now this is on the next level. Enjoy free downloads.

Data moving to the cloud
The day is near when hard drives, CDs, and even flash drive will soon become obsolete. The data will become centralized. The virtualization practice – this is quite a change from previous trend. There are tremendeous amount of planning to manage the change how we do things, how we see things, even the way we think about things.

These are the trends I saw in 2012 but if you have noticed more, please feel free to add more to this list.

Have you or your corporation ever struggle to keep track of all images that being purchased over the years?
Does it cost you a fortune for not keeping track of all image licensing?
Have you ever purchased the same image again without knowing that you had already purchased that same image before and now your expense got double?

The answer to any question above is ‘yes’ then you might want to keep continue reading. The thought must be running in your mind would be how would you prevent these from keep happening? Well, you need to start thinking about Digital Asset Management.

If you are wondering what Digital Asset is, then it is any form of media that is being transformed in electronic format that has a ‘value’ to the company. Few of the Digital Assets examples are photos, videos, images, audios, etc. A Digital Asset Management is a tool that helps you create a library of your digital assets. Digital Asset Management is a centralized place to store, manage, search, share, and distribute your digital assets of your organization.

Subsequent are few of the purpose you can accomplish by formalizing Digital Asset Management Process in your organization, which:
• allows you to create centralized repository that stores and organizes all digital assets in one convenient location
• allows you to keep track of all digital assets efficiently
• allows you build equity of your digital assets
• allows you to gain greater control of your digital files
• allows you to save significant resource time
• allows you to keep up-to-date with all image licensing that includes copyright protection

Now that you have read so far reveals that you certainly are interested reading more about various solutions. There are a variety of options available out there in the market. Not sure from where to start? I would like you to fist grab a pen and paper and right down your/company goals. Ask these questions to yourself such as – What are your goals and expectations? Does this solution have critical features you require? Is this solution scalable enough? How many numbers of users that will be using this software/product? Is this solution secure? The top DAM challenge is Usability. Do some detail research about the various solutions they are offering and pick the winner.

In a nutshell, Digital Asset Management process will help you build equity of digital assets; create a foundation for productivity, collaboration, and imagination.

Helpful links:
Read a definition of Digital Asset Management on wikipedia
Click here to see few options available in the market
Few more options

Even when you have a great strategy, great products, and great messages to deliver but how you are delivering your message does matter among all these flood of messages floating all around us. Every message is trying to get our attention so delivering your message creatively that stands out is vital.

You might have heard marketing people say this before, ‘content is king’. I concur. However, aesthetics has the same importance as content. Compelling content and appealing aesthetics – both requires cultivation and time. If you are determined to winning the attention game then both goes hand in hand like a royal couple.

To stand out in a crowd, creativity is the key. Imagine this: what if you have added some great product or great message but have not change the look-&-feel of your company website? It might fail to gain the client’s attention. But if you approach with ‘the big bang of creativity’; a new fresh look of your company website then your website will not go unnoticed. After all, that is the ultimate goal your marketing team might try to achieve, which is to stand out against the competition.

Clients should remember your company’s name over others. If you’ve asked to provide a company name about the specific product then how many names do you remember which offers similar features and benefits? Just one or two, correct? You want your company to be one of them. The average human brain can only store limited information. Creative can help you achieve the success and excellence you strive for.

Let me give you an example of banking industry. Few years back marketing team of this bank came up with the strategy to talk about their products that their bank offers. For example we have product A if are single mom, we have product B if you are first time home buyer, we have product C if you want to invest in your kid’s 529, and we have product D if you want a loan, etc. The statistics indicated that this bank’s rank was falling. They realized that it was time to define a new strategy to gain their clients back. Instead of talking about products, the newer strategy they came up with is to talk about the clients’ circumstances and emotions. The various research methods made it clear how important it is to attract clients to you instead of pushing yourself to them. Every client’s have different types of challenges or struggles in their lives such as single mom have her own challenges raising kids and financial shortfalls, a person who lost his job and worries about paying bills and mortgage, etc. The ’emotional design’ played role here, which became a powerful tool in creating exceptional user experience. They started building stories around various scenarios, added persona to this story along with the creative touch. Along with the content strategy, they revolutionized their aesthetics. They changed the entire look-&-feel of their brand in all the channels such as TV, radio, online, Social media, etc. Today, the stakeholders are celebrating their record-breaking quarter after another. This was just one of the examples but we have seen transformation through aesthetics in many big brands such as coke, Pepsi, etc.

Content and creative should be a part of any marketing strategy. The problem is that creative development starts after decisions have made about creating a new strategy or message. Actually, creative development should start at the same time when you start to plan and discuss to build a new strategy.

I am not saying there are no challenges to incorporate strategy and creative at the same time in an early stage in the process. There are so many moving pieces are involved that sometime strategies completely changes compares to the early stage of strategic briefing document. One needs to be very flexible while working with the multifunctional team. Every team in your company from marketing to product team should meet their needs.

Brand is everywhere. So, where do Brands live? Look around and you will find yourself surrounding within Brands. It lives in your everyday’s life. Look in the refrigerator or in kitchen cabinets, underneath kitchen sink, in supermarkets isles, or in the drawer of your office. Brands ultimately live in the minds of customers.

The American Marketing Association, a professional association for marketers across the US, defines a Brand as a “Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”

In past, it was just a logo or a design of a company who want to spread a word out about their product or service. The definition of a Brand evolved pretty significantly throughout in past decade. Today, it is much more than just a logo or a design. Brand is all about the customers’ opinion about the product, expectation, experience, memory, relationships which collectively are the grounds where the customers’ returns and choose the same product or service. These are the factors on which customers’ choose one product or service over another. Brand is a promise and expectation. It is an unspoken contract company makes with their customers.

What does Branding do?
Branding does lot of things. Brand returns the promise and customers’ expectations. So what is the Brand promise? This usually doesn’t convey in the advertising but it reflects ultimately what it means. What do you think when you think about Disneyland. It’s a magical experience. It is a bonding time in a family. It lives in your mind as a life time memory. Whenever you think about magic or magical moments, you automatically think about Disney experience. Ultimately, this promise creates the relationships. The expectation of fun and happiness, spend a quality of time with a family, the experience you will receive when you visit Disneyland.

Starbucks. What comes to your mind when you hear a word Starbucks? A lifestyle or connection, right? Do you know that Starbucks didn’t spend a single dollar on advertising before 2009? At present, Starbucks is the largest coffee shop in the world, who owns more than 17000 stores worldwide. Brand gives you a promise that the customers’ will receive when they use your product or service. Brand makes you feel greater when they are part of it. This easily blends well in customers’ lifestyle – coffee and connections.

Do you want to know what these top Brands worth?
The fight between the top 10 most valuable Brands continues as we enter in 2012. As of today, the coca-cola remained on top; valued at 71.86 billion followed by IBM 69.90 billion, and Microsoft 59.08 billion as a 3rd place.

The question you might have now but why Brand?
Because Brand identifies the truth
Because Brand tells the story
Because Brand have appeal
Because Brand increase revenue
Because Brand builds valuable emotional ties.
Brands are all around us. Which lives in our; customers’ mind…that is Brand.
It is an unspoken contract we make by choosing to employ same product or service over and over…that is Brand.

The designer’s role is continuously evolving in this ever-changing world. Being a designer now-a-days is daunting and much more stressful in comparison to the designers of yesteryears. In my opinion, the design industry is one of the fields that evolve faster than any other profession — technically and creatively. That does not mean that the designers of earlier years had no challenges at all but the set of challenges they used to face was much more less than today. There was a time when designers had to just focus only on creativity or creation of graphics/art.

Now-a-days having only ‘creative mind’ is not sufficient. Along with all talents they used to possess, now today’s designers have to learn, keep up and update themselves with various latest technologies and tool to produce digital art that being used by the industry. In addition, being only ‘technologically savvy’ is not the only requirement but along with all these above skills, one should posses additional essential skills such as communication skills, people skills, and business skills that enable them to become successful in the current market.

That being said, let me cite some of the challenges the designers are facing today:

The designers are expected to produce more with less
In today’s competitive environment, the business owners are becoming well aware of how to find inexpensive work, globally, at their finger tips. You don’t need to find a designer in the same area you live in. The labor cost varies across the countries so it is possible that they can find same work done cheaper. Say if you they want to create a logo for their company, there are so many options available out there which offers starts from $5. Think about what kind of mediocre logo you would get if it cost you $5! Think what if your company logo designed by an amateur, who doesn’t have the required skill set, quality or professionalism. I am not saying that you can never get quality work in cheap price but have they researched about your company or the company goals, the service or product being offered? Have they followed the guidelines or principles needs to be followed to create the logo? Have you thought about security and confidentiality? When you want to create quality work, it is unlikely that it can be done this cheap. However, accept the fact that there are lots of competitions out there. The result, the designers are being forced to work more in less money to survive in this world.

The designers are hired not for their creativity but for their ability to copy
The business owners today are aware of their competition and want the similar design of their competition. They compel the designers to copy other designer’s work. The consequence to this limits the designer choice and creativity. You might have seen so many logos or websites that look identical. When you see similar logos for two corporations, the reason is not that the designers already at the last drop of their creative juice but most likely either it’s designed by an amateur designer or being compelled. In essence, this trend has created a whole new breed of ‘copy and paste’ designers.

Designing has become a ‘high tech’ profession
Those days are gone where designers used to sketch on the paper or clipboard. Now that platform is shifting to digital. Along with the ‘creative mind’ the designers used to posses, the designers now have to learn and stay ahead of the curve of emerging trends, technologies, tools and softwares. It becomes very essential to stay competitive in the real world. Trust me, I believe in ‘lifelong learning’ but the way this field is growing, it is almost impossible to proactively keep up with so many trends. Even if you do keep up with all these technology, there is no guarantee of success.

Customers think they ARE the designers
A website just used to be a one-way communication; however, that trend has changed. Websites used to be nice to have but now they have become a must have marketing tool. The internet has changed the way we think, live and do business. To realize that we are living in the innovation age, one does not have to look any further than how search engines have completely displaced the traditional yellow pages. A consequence is that today’s businessperson is not only aware but keenly familiar with what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means and the power that it provides. Every business leaders want to be seen on the top of the search list. That being said, clients are becoming much more aware of their needs and wants, which make designers life harder. Furthermore, these days there are so many free web editors, softwares and tools available in the market. Everybody wants to design their own websites with the help of these freebies. They think they are designer themselves without any background education, design-driven mindset or knowledge.

As you can see, there are numerous challenges designers have to deal with today. With the rapid pace at which technology keeps evolving, it is hard to visualize what challenges (and opportunities) today’s designers will face in the coming years.

What I did it. What did I learn.

I recently transformed my personal website from HTML4 to next generation of HTML – HTML5 (Hyper Text Markup Language version 5). Read my earlier post if you are interested to learn more about Evaluation of HTML. There are lots of hype about this new version. I thought I should adopt new standard and learn this new way of coding HTML page. If you are thinking to switch to HTML5 like me or in process of adapting, following few important points to bear in mind.

First and foremost question. what is HTML5 contains? HTML5 contains HTML5 markup + CSS3 + JavaScript APIs. HTML5 is not yet an official standard, and no browsers have full HTML5 support. Before you completely switch your pages in HTML5, significant point to keep in a mind that HTML5 is not a W3C recommendation yet. it is ongoing and making a great progress day by day.

Following what I learned while switching from HTML4 to HTML5:

1.) Internet Explorer (IE) still commands a large percentage usage share of web browsers. With this high usage percentage it is important to ensure that your webpage functions correctly in IE. Regardless what browsers your visitors are using it should work fine. Good news is that you can implement this HTML5 IE enabling JavaScript code into your page and bingo! This is the JavaScript workaround to enable HTML5 elements in earlier versions before IE 9 that do not support all elements. It is an excellent way to get IE to acknowledge the new HTML5 elements at this point. Keep in a mind that it may change tomorrow. I was unable to view my page in earlier versions of IE 9 but once I implemented this code in my page, now I be able to view my webpage accurate even in IE6.

2.) All coding structure elements such as doctype, navigation, footer, article, etc. became more simpler, clean and has now more meaning to it. If you are like me who like to hand code HTML then you will love this trait. For example, the doctype. The doctype declaration should be the very first object in an HTML document, even before html tag. You don’t have to remember writing long and different declaration codes so that browser knows what type of document to expect. It is important that you specify doctype in all HTML documents. There are three different doctypes in HTML 4, now in HTML5 there is only one. Isn’t this amazing?

3.) One of the popular elements of HTML5 is the canvas element. The canvas element is used to draw graphics on a web page. It has several methods for drawing paths, boxes, circles, characters, and adding images. It uses JavaScript to draw graphics on the web page. But, if you are one of those who absolutely hate JavaScript or coding, this is not must feature. This is good to have not must have element. So don’t get confused that you have to learn JavaScript. You can still use images in your webpage. If you are using image as a background image like I am using on my webpage, you don’t have to add image in the canvas element. You can still use as a body background image.

4.) One of the common misconception is that HTML5 will kill Flash. HTML5 cannot generate animation or interactive elements like Flash does. It should not be considered a replacement technology for flash. Currently the majority videos are shown through a Flash plug-in and that will change as HTML5 has native capability for playing videos and audios. You don’t need to choose, because they can work together. At the moment, I have not deployed any interactive element such as video or audio on my server but I will do it in future so stay tuned.

5.) Common tags such as center, font, u, big, etc are not supported in HTML5. Instead of spending lot of hours troubleshooting, I would suggest that you read a good book or authorized online websites. I used w3schools.com as my quick resource. I also found lists which contains supported tags, descriptions, attributes, etc. See below links in the reference section.

Fortunately, that day is not far when HTML5 will be one-size-fits-all solution means all browsers will support HTML5 and designers/developers do not have to spend their half life working on browser workarounds.

References:
There are actually three sites from W3C pertaining to HTML5 that you can use. There is the main draft (http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/spec.html), a reference guide (http://dev.w3.org/html5/html-author), and a comparison document (http://dev.w3.org/html5/html4-differences/) that points out the differences between HTML5 and the current standard HTML4.

Working Draft (WHATWG)
This is the Editor’s Draft from WHATWG. You can use it online or print the available PDF version. (http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage)

Wouldn’t be nice if there would be a way you can find out which webpage design your visitors like the most if we provide design alternatives to them?
Isn’t it amazing if we can directly find out from our visitors which look-&-feel they prefer and we can eliminate all guess work?
Absolutely, now you can test these variations by performing A/B testing.

What is A/B testing?
It is exactly what it sounds like. You have two versions of one element, A and B. To determine which element is better, you test them simultaneously and split your traffic between these two versions. In the end, you measure which version got more click; select the version which performs the best and use that version in your webpage.

How does A/B testing works?
It is very simple. First, you need to decide what you want to test. Then, you need to create two or may be three versions of your webpage or element, depending on your requirements. It can be any element or module from your webpage, which is uniquely created and stand alone. It can be just simple call-to-action ‘submit’ button by changing color red vs. green. Next step is to select tool for this job. Set up your conversation goal. Typically, you will get a JavaScript code, which you would implement in your webpage or element. Test these alternatives with your visitors concurrently. Website optimizer will then show these alternatives to your visitors randomly while monitoring which combinations lead to the highest conversion rates. The tool records the variations that were shown to the visitor. Finally, instead of all speculations now you have proven findings statistics in front of you.

Even though, A/B testing concept is very simple to understand, one important thing you need to keep in a mind.
Always test these variations simultaneously. If you are testing version A for one week and version B for another, than you are doing it wrong. It is possible that when you tested worst version B, but it’s just happen to have better sales that week. Obviously, it is hard to control external factors such as search traffic, seasonality, etc. so you cannot be 100% confident of the result. Heard this phrase, “compare Apples to Apples”? Always split the traffic between two versions. Let the tool randomly select the version.

What are the benefits?
• It’s easy.
• It increases website conversation rates. Users’ loyalty and conversion rates are more important than number of click-thru rates.
• It eliminates guess work because you can find outcome directly from your visitor
• It’s an easy way to find what change drives more conversions.
• It increases visitor satisfaction overall
• It might be a cheapest way of doing testing since you will be using same resources and tools.
• It helps increase sales. This is directly tied in to your company ROI and more importantly increased revenue of your company

Many well-known companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and BBC use the designed experiment approach to making marketing decisions. There are several free tool such as Google Website Optimizer and paid tools such as Optimizely, Visual website optimizer, etc. available out there in the market to perform these tests.

On the whole, you can A/B test everything. But, resist the urge to nit-pick every tiny portion of your site and change something every time by performing this test. One player is never more accurate and reliable than other players, so always look for other significant ways to improve your website goals.

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?