When it comes to mobile app design, rapid prototyping can refer to several quick methods to arrive at such a model.

There are also various types of prototypes that are faster to prepare than a fully interactive hi-fidelity prototype.

This article addresses key issues with traditional prototyping and why app development companies should explore rapid prototyping as a standard practice.

We’ll also discuss the prototyping process, some best practices when prototyping, what your goals should be, and, most importantly, the type of prototyping tools that can achieve these goals.

  • Traditional 🆚 Rapid Prototyping
  • Disadvantages Of Traditional Prototyping And Benefits Of Rapid App Design Practices🤷‍♀️
  • When Is Rapid Prototyping Required? 🧐
  • The Rapid Prototyping Process 💻
  • Essential Points To Consider Before Employing The Rapid Prototyping Approach 💁🏻‍♀️
  • How To Choose The Right Rapid Prototyping Tool ⚒️
  • Important disclosure: we're proud affiliates of some tools mentioned in this guide. If you click an affiliate link and subsequently make a purchase, we will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you (you pay nothing extra).

    Traditional 🆚 Rapid Prototyping

    Conventionally, rapid prototyping usually refers to an efficient design process in the realm of manufacturing.

    Rapid Prototyping vs Traditional Prototyping
    Rapid Prototyping vs Traditional Prototyping

    In this context, however, we’ll be looking at how these best practices can be adopted into the world of software development, specifically mobile app development.

    From that perspective, what we’re going to look at first is the disadvantages of traditional prototyping and wireframing, which typically yields a low-fidelity prototype that is not interactive in any way.

    It is usually distributed as a digital file or a printout and offers a visual flow of various processes that the product can execute.

    In other words, a pictorial representation of its capabilities.

    In the manufacturing sector, traditional prototyping has several drawbacks. Interestingly, many of these have parallels or equivalents in the world of app design.

    Rapid prototyping or rapid app design in the context of software development or mobile app development means accelerating the process to yield similar - and often superior - results concerning the prototype produced.

    Again, an attribute shared with the world of manufacturing.

    Disadvantages Of Traditional Prototyping And Benefits Of Rapid App Design Practices🤷‍♀️

    Budget Blowouts 💰

    One of the most common drawbacks of using traditional prototyping or low-fi, non-interactive prototypes or wireframes is the danger of overshooting the project’s budget for development.

    On the other hand, rapid prototyping allows project stakeholders to evaluate the final cost based on a working and interactive prototype.

    The most significant advantage here is that problems and issues can be spotted early and addressed before going into the development phase, which is often the most expensive mobile app development phase.

    Lack of Flexibility 👨🏼‍💻

    Complex wireframes might make sense to a designer or a developer, but what about stakeholders who don’t have an intricate knowledge of how these processes are laid out?

    It often means someone has to explain what a prototype does, which defeats the exercise’s purpose.

    With the rapid prototyping of interactive hi-fi models, the processes are self-explanatory because stakeholders can interact with a feature to see what it does.

    As a result, approvals happen faster, and the entire process is accelerated.

    The End Customer Is Less Involved 💁🏻‍♂️

    Closely related to the flexibility issue is the customer’s involvement in sponsoring the project.

    Traditional prototypes typically go through several internal iterations that the customer doesn’t participate in.

    This leads to issues down the road because the end product may look nothing like the prototype.

    With rapid prototyping, the iterations are faster.

    They can be sent to the customer for quick approval, which shortens the timeline to the development phase and helps avoid many of the pitfalls of traditional methods.

    These are just some of the drawbacks of traditional prototyping that rapid app design can address.

    However, it should also be noted that there are specific use cases in which rapid prototyping is desirable over conventional methods.

    Let’s look at some of these.

    When Is Rapid Prototyping Required? 🧐

    Rapid prototyping is a part of Rapid Application Development but is often used in the agile framework, where it is used in nearly every stage of development.

    Specific features are assigned to particular agile teams so the iterative process can move forward seamlessly without input from other teams.
    The Difference Between Prototypes & Wireframes

    Agile methodologies like Kanban, for instance, use rapid prototyping to help reach specific target goals or releases. The Scrum methodology uses rapid prototyping to translate the scope of a project into final sprints.

    Even the hybrid Scrumban approach can utilize rapid app design to target longer-term goals and the ultimate release date.

    As such, rapid prototyping can be used in the following scenarios:

    • Rapid prototyping of intricate interactive models helps large-scale projects where the prototype needs to be broken down into specific functional components. Development teams can then get a 360-degree view of the product as a whole and the particular features they are responsible for developing.
    • In iterative app design, rapid prototyping is used to create iterative prototypes to match sprints’ frequency. They often undergo minor changes that ultimately go into the final product.
    • Rapid prototyping is also functional when intensive testing is required to zero in on a UX problem or solve a specific usability issue. These tests’ feedback loops yield vital data to the development team and the design team, who often work closely on successive prototypes in a tight back-and-forth sequence.
    • When core features are the focus of the project, rapid prototyping can be invaluable. Rapid prototyping for more extensive projects can focus on these specific features rather than the entire product, which could often take weeks to prototype in full.
    • When UX is of primary importance, rapid prototyping takes a front seat. In such use cases, high-fidelity prototypes are critical to the project’s success because they result in more meaningful real-world testing by actual target users.

    The Rapid Prototyping Process 💻

    The steps involved in rapid prototyping are essentially the same as standard or traditional prototyping and interactive wireframing, but the UI often represents the actual product.

    In other words, a specific design is prototyped rather than a simplified wireframe. This makes it possible to test how the end-user will receive the product effectively.

    The steps are as follows👇🏽

    Identify The Needs of The Customer And The End-User 🕵🏼

    The first step involved the PRD or product requirements document, which outlines the project’s goals, specific features and capabilities of the product, assumptions, and other data related to the scope of development.  

    Designers use this to create the mobile app layout along with functional components in a final prototype. This prototype is the starting point for the rest of the process.

    Gather Feedback From Relevant Stakeholders 📝

    The next stage is to share this prototype with testers, the customer, and other key stakeholders.

    Although real-world users might not be stakeholders in the formal sense, they are often the most valuable feedback sources.

    This feedback can save time and money in the long run because it allows the prototype to be tweaked and modified to address UX needs better.

    Improve The Prototype UI Code And Associated Functionality 👏🏼

    In this stage, the feedback gathered is analyzed and translated into action items for prototype improvement.

    Certain missing features may be added; some redundancies may be eliminated, and so on.

    This is often an iterative process that goes from Step 1 through Step 3 and then back until the prototype is finally approved.

    Send Prototype to The Development Team 👩🏼‍💻

    The approved prototype is now sent to the development team, but it’s still not the final version.

    Certain development constraints such as technology or cost could force further iterations of the prototype, in which case it will be sent back to the designer with a description of why a particular component cannot be developed as envisioned.

    This may happen several times, during which the prototype is continually tested to validate its unity with the original PRD.

    As this process is executed, the product is developed in a compartmentalized manner.

    Some features may become available before others, for instance, or some features might not make it to the final product.

    When the code is finally put together, it may look nothing like the initial prototype based on the first design iteration.

    As such, rapid prototyping is vital to this prolonged process and every stage that it involves.

    Essential Points To Consider Before Employing The Rapid Prototyping Approach 💁🏻‍♀️

    Although rapid prototyping offers a desirable proposition to mobile app developers, there are certain things to consider when deploying it as part of your design process.

    Since rapid prototyping primarily addresses the flaws in traditional prototyping, there are some helpful questions to ask:

    Do I Need Rapid Prototyping? 🤔

    Rapid prototyping yields better results in most scenarios, but the benefits need to be quantified to whatever extent possible.

    For example, suppose you can cut 100 development hours using interactive prototypes that are rapidly delivered, but the entire project is estimated at 10,000 hours.

    In that case, you’re only getting a 1% return on the investment.

    Is it worth it?

    Do The Designers Have the Right Tools? 🧰

    There are specific requirements for rapid prototyping that not all design platforms offer.

    There’s a more detailed discussion in the next section of this article, but the prime consideration here is whether the designers are equipped with the right tools.

    Understanding the rapid app design process will help decide on which tools deliver the most value in this scenario.

    Is There a Framework to Support Rapid Prototyping? ⚙️

    When using traditional development methods rather than iterative approaches like Agile, it might not be a good idea to deploy rapid app design or rapid prototyping.

    The reason is that there may not be resources in place to make use of the accelerated process.

    For instance, rapid prototyping needs quick turnaround times for feedback and approval.

    This is only possible if there is a mechanism to share the prototype online and get fast feedback in a real-time environment.

    Are Release Dates Critical? 📆

    This is an important question because one of the primary purposes of rapid app design is to reduce time-to-market dramatically.

    This is where it truly adds value, especially if there is a first-mover advantage involved.

    When a project has a tight deadline for release, rapid prototyping is an essential component. If not, it merely contributes to incremental value or nominal cost reduction.

    How To Choose The Right Rapid Prototyping Tool ⚒️

    The software platform for rapid prototyping needs to meet several demanding criteria because there’s a lot of demand and pressure on the system.

    Not all applications are suitable because they lack one attribute or another. What are these attributes?

    Here are some suggestions from Wondershare Mockitt’s view:

    Collaborative Environment 🤝

    The most critical aspect is how the system lends itself to prototype sharing, what feedback mechanisms are built-in, and whether it works in a real-time manner or a linear fashion.

    For instance, if a prototype has to be previewed only on a particular platform and that platform is not always readily available by the people testing the prototype, it defeats the purpose of rapid prototyping.

    Therefore, the platform itself must be collaborative by design.

    Rich Asset Libraries 🗃

    To create realistic mobile app prototypes, one of the prerequisites is the design’s core components.

    For instance, the Android app prototype must have Material Design components ready to use by the designers.

    Similarly, the software must support multiple OS platforms and devices to be realistic and mimic the actual end product. Again, not all design tools can do this.

    Image Source: Wondershare Mockitt

    Automatic Code Generation  🖥

    Most modern design applications now offer automatic code generation, so the designer doesn’t need to know any coding.

    However, in some cases, standalone software needs to sync with a cloud server for code to be updated when there are iterative changes.

    Since rapid prototyping is highly dependent on real-time iterations that are often done on the fly, the platform must support this.

    User-Friendly Interface And Easy Asset-To-Page Linking 💯

    Interactive prototyping involves linking assets to their resulting page states or pages, which means the platform needs to offer a simple interface without much complexity.

    Basic capabilities such as drag-and-drop linking suddenly become of prime importance in a rapid app design scenario, and the platform must necessarily support this.

    The easier the prototyping process, the faster the prototype can be created, and the quicker each stage of development that’s dependent on rapid prototyping can move forward.

    Friction-Free Developer Handoff 😎

    This is where there are usually many conflicts because the design code or UI code for the prototype is very different from the code used in development.

    The prototype code is merely raw HTML elements along with style elements like CSS.

    This translation needs to be smooth so the developers can quickly inspect the code and download all the asset information in a format that’s usable to them, such as HTML5.

    Additionally, certain design logic might conflict with business logic or the needs of the user. As such, the application needs to recognize and support this transition, which not all platforms do.

    In closing, it must be noted that cloud-based platform is a trend for better rapid prototyping.

    This makes them easily accessible from any location, a critical consideration in remote teams’ current environment where there’s little physical interaction between team members and project stakeholders.

    You can explore several of these for your rapid app design needs and keep in mind the other factors that should drive your decision, such as:

    • Asset availability
    • Feedback mechanisms
    • Code capability
    • User-friendliness, and other aspects of the right tool for rapid prototyping

    Good luck with your rapid prototyping journey ahead! 👏🏼