Prototyping

• Please ignore the book on this topic :-)

• Prototyping is super-powerful

• Purpose of prototyping: gather information / learning

  • Is some technical thing feasible / good?
  • Does something meet user needs?
  • How does one do something?
  • Is this architecture OK?
  • etc

• Build the smallest prototype that answers the question

Two Kinds Of Prototypes

• Reusable: altered pieces of the prototype will be used in the product

• Discardable: once learning is complete, the prototype will be thrown away

• Default should be discardable:

  • Usually much easier to build

  • Will typically produce a better thing the second time

Product Prototypes

• Useful during the planning process

  • Narrow down architecture

  • Get customer feedback

• Perilous

  • Probably will be much reuse

  • Every shortcut and mistake gets amplified

• Keep these especially narrow

  • Common UI tool is "pencil-and-paper" prototypes