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11 Feb, 2021

Why Prototyping on a budget is valued?

Are you running a startup, small business, or are you moving to a large-scale production? Either you’re part of a small, medium, or large business; in any case, you take into account how your potential customers will perceive your product.

You heavily invest your time and money in the development of customer-centric products but how are you so sure that your product will be liked and loved by your potential audiences? Of course, products are the lifeblood for the rise and fall of your businesses, hence, you need to learn how to invest elegantly to not fall.

To elaborate on the above talk, do you know why prototyping on a budget is valued in the design process? Before you begin to assume, let’s get a closer understanding of the what, how, and why of prototyping on a budget.

Prototyping: Engineering for Change

Software developers embrace Prototyping as a crucial step in the software design process to guarantee mistakes are dodged. The concept is being used to ensure how errors are avoided by testing the scope, assumptions, and evaluating the parameters before starting manufacturing.

At times, failure brings valuable lessons; don’t you agree? Often your struggle with prototyping on a budget can produce treasured teachings for the reason that you may not know how to make the cleverest investment and take a careful accounting decision.

What is Prototyping?

IDEO.org is a non-commercial design studio, look what it has to say about Prototyping:

“If a picture is worth a thousand words, a prototype is worth a thousand meetings.”

Such profound words.

In the software product design process, prototyping is the fourth step to follow in the life cycle. The major purpose is to build a tangible model of the functional features that were already discussed in the initiation phase of the product.

Do you approve of the idea of spending money on just an assumption? It doesn’t make sense, right? That’s where prototyping on a budget jumps in. So why not design a perceptible model to present to the prospect to problem-solve their ideas and allow them to communicate with their end-users to gather as much feedback for a product tailored to their needs?

Prototyping: The Behavior

  • Reveal assumptions to see the true picture
  • Foresee bugs in interfaces and spot the areas for perfection
  • Converse with the end-user
  • Explore to experiment
  • Solution-based approach
  • Prototype to empathize

The Confusion: Prototype or not to Prototype

Does prototyping help? Let us explain how.

If you are on a tight budget and you have to renovate your home how do you go about it? Do you contact an interior designer for guidance or do you underestimate the need and experiment with it yourself?

If you think you are wise enough to do it yourself then you may be wrong. It occurs with a high probability that you may end up bearing loss.
An interior designer has studied the field and only he can guide on what to do with your home. He won’t only guide but show you the shades or maybe some images to clarify your idea and you will get what you want. That’s exactly what a software team does with prototyping.

The classic software development process is not new to anyone. A client approaches you with an idea, you conduct a few meetings to refine that idea, you do some research on it with your internal team, and develop the project.

But what if the actual users do not like the product? Will they pay for it? No!
You must present something to the end-user to know the answers to these questions.

What can be a Prototype?

Confused about the type of prototype to create? Don’t worry, here is the answer:

  • Sketches
  • Wireframes
  • Mock-ups
  • Video prototypes
  • Blue-prints

PROTOTYPING ON A BUDGET

The most critical thing is to deliver the project on-time and within the defined budget. Hence, if your SDLC team says that they do not have time & budget to prototype, project managers must debate with them.

With prototypes, the gathered feedback can aid in projects being made on time, less effort, and fewer budget changes.

PROTOTYPING ON A BUDGET: CONVERSATE WITH YOUR IDEA

You must know that budget overruns due to rework. Typically, rework is caused by errors made during the production phase. That is exactly what we are trying to emphasize the idea of prototyping on a budget.

Conclusion

To avoid bigger losses, organizations must dramatically increase interest in following the prototyping process.


It is quite clear to you how prototyping can improve the quality of the requirements given by the client. Your team and the client can stay on the same page if you talk about the budget estimates. You can anticipate the higher cost and find a way to resolve it, changes are revealed in the beginning to avoid potential hurdles during the development phase, and especially to avoid end result disasters.

For your information

Do you believe that prototyping on a budget is a good idea? Are you ready to commence a project?

If you have further queries, you can take an idea from our team about prototyping on a budget for an app or any product. Mockup Machine team is here to assist every step of the way! Contact us today to get started.

Move your concept one step closer.