4 Benefits of Mobile App Prototyping

Prototyping is making a draft version of your final product that helps you to get reliable user feedback. It’s like taking a test drive of the app design before the development cycle begins. 

Depending on the fidelity of a prototype that is how it conveys the look and feel of the final product, it falls into two categories as follows: 

1. Low-Fidelity Prototype 

Lo-Fi prototypes are sketchy, unfinished models that do have some features of the final product but mostly they are quite simple. 

Their main function is to verify and test the functional aspect of the product rather than the visual appearance.  

It normally contains the following: 

• Screen layout 

• Shape, size, and positioning of elements 

• Only key parts of the content 

• Basic navigation between screens 

Everything is kept simple at this early phase of design so as not to be side-tracked by graphical design elements like images, color or typography. And you remain focused on the core functionality. 

The low-fidelity prototype is fast, cheap, easy to make changes and test. Overall, it provides a general overview of the product. 

2. High-Fidelity Prototype 

The High-fidelity prototype looks and functions as same as possible as the final product. It contains all the layouts, navigation, and positioning of elements of the lo-fi prototype but is much more faithful to the details. 

Here are the basic characteristics of hi-fi prototypes: 

• The whole design including interface elements, graphics, and spacing is much more detailed and looks similar to real app or website. 

• The prototype contains most of the content that will be used in the final product. 

• Due to their realistic design, it is more interactive. 

A high-fidelity prototype, though expensive but more responsive, more interactive, and better representative of the finished product than a low-fidelity prototype. 

Prototypes are valuable validation and testing tools that allow you to verify the feasibility of your app concept. In addition, there are other benefits you can look forward to.  

Let’s look at how prototypes benefit your app. 

1. Enhances UX 

User experience (UX) is one of the hardest things to get right. And even tech giants fail to get it right every once in a while.  

 Luckily, prototyping is exceptional for gaining UX insights. As real users test your app, you get more accurate feedback about the UI. 

Some of the many questions you will ask during the UX/UI designing are-  

• Can users navigate the application intuitively?  

• Is using two screens for a specific feature better than using just one?  

• Or is this color scheme working?  

Prototyping answers all these questions. With a rich set of live data to draw from, a UX and UI designer's job remains less about guesswork and is based more on solid research.  

 Not only that, but you can also use prototyping to compare two or more variations of your app's user interface more closely. So, if you can’t decide whether to display your navigation menu at the right or bottom of the screen- prototypes are here for your rescue. Test them with two prototypes to see which user likes the most. 

2. Enhances the Feedback Cycle  

 Not only it is a great testing tool, but it is also a great project roadmap. Prototyping provides visual tools to convey the design, flow, and functionality of your app.  

App prototypes ensure team collaboration and efficient iteration, creating perfect harmony. Mobile app prototypes can be shared among team members and anyone in the development team can provide input. Your app benefits from different aspects which makes it much more complete. 

3. Allows early user testing  

At the end of the day, its users will approve or reject your design. And if it doesn’t meet their expectations, the revisions and reworks on the finished app are hard to avoid.  

Even if you make any assumptions at the planning stage, they are still assumptions that you are not certain about. However, prototyping enables you to test these assumptions against the users, identify issues better and fix them early in the development process. The result- saves you from all the hassle of revision and rework.  

4. Enables Iteration  

Prototyping allows you to quickly improve your design concepts. You can review and refine your ideas in less time. It helps you determine whether the solution to the problems is working or not and make the changes in elements accordingly. If these solutions do not work, you can create another version.  

Prototyping the future products helps you identify and formulate key design routes. Combined with a rigorous test program, prototyping not only ensures that your app meets user expectations but also increases the chances of your app being a successful one. 

At Hashbrown Systems, we serve a mobile app prototype development service to help you turn your idea into a tangible prototype. Contact us to discuss your app idea.  

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