Catalog
method#Product#Delivery#Quality Assurance#Software Engineering

Rapid Prototyping

Fast, iterative creation of simple prototypes to validate assumptions early and gather user feedback.

Rapid prototyping enables quick, iterative creation of tangible mockups and minimal prototypes to validate assumptions early.
Established
Medium

Classification

  • Medium
  • Business
  • Design
  • Intermediate

Technical context

Design tools (e.g. Figma)Communication platforms (e.g. Slack)Issue tracker / backlog (e.g. Jira, GitHub Issues)

Principles & goals

Test fast instead of perfectingFocus on assumptions and learning goalsCross-disciplinary collaboration
Discovery
Domain, Team

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Misinterpreting user feedback with small samples
  • Premature technical commitments despite prototypes
  • Stakeholders demand unrealistic fidelity
  • Define clear metrics before testing
  • Start low-fidelity and increase if needed
  • Involve stakeholders early and regularly

I/O & resources

  • Problem definition and hypotheses
  • Minimal design or feature scope
  • Accessible test users or stakeholders
  • Prototype artifacts (clickable, mockup, physical)
  • Collected user feedback and insights
  • Concrete recommendations for implementation or rejection

Description

Rapid prototyping enables quick, iterative creation of tangible mockups and minimal prototypes to validate assumptions early. It focuses on fast user and stakeholder feedback, reduces uncertainty and supports focused decisions in product and development processes. The method is practical, cross-disciplinary and well suited for discovery phases.

✔

  • Early validation reduces misinvestment
  • Fast user feedback improves product decisions
  • Lower implementation risks

✖

  • Not all technical constraints can be prototyped
  • High-fidelity prototypes increase cost and time
  • Results depend on participants and context

  • Time to first feedback

    Time span from prototype start to first actionable user feedback.

  • Validated assumptions

    Number of assumptions confirmed or refuted by tests.

  • Participant satisfaction

    Subjective rating by participants on prototype clarity and usability.

E-commerce checkout flow

Team builds a clickable low-fidelity prototype, tests with 10 users and validates checkout hypotheses before implementation.

Mobile onboarding

Fast iterations of an onboarding flow, measuring drop-off rates and adjusting before dev effort.

Hardware interaction model

Physical prototype checks ergonomic assumptions and delivers concrete insights for manufacturing decisions.

1

Formulate clear hypotheses and learning goals

2

Choose appropriate fidelity and prototyping technique

3

Build prototype, run short tests and collect feedback

4

Analyze results, iterate or decide on next step

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Undocumented test assumptions lead to uncertainty
  • Prototype implementations are mistakenly adopted as production code
  • Orphaned prototype artifacts without context
Limited resources for testingUnclear requirements and target groupsTooling and integration limits
  • Using prototype as final specification
  • High fidelity for impression rather than learning
  • Interpreting single user experiences as general truths
  • Too small, non-diverse test groups
  • Ignoring technical restrictions during prototyping
  • Preferring stakeholder feedback over user feedback
Facilitation and workshop moderationBasic UX design and prototyping tool skillsRapid test design and evaluation
Time to first feedbackRisk reduction before implementationStakeholder alignment and decision basis
  • • Time constraints of the discovery phase
  • • Budget for prototyping materials and user tests
  • • Data protection in user studies