Design better user experiences with interactive prototyping: learn how to create, test, and refine prototypes.

Prototyping is an essential part of the product design process.

It allows designers to test their ideas and gather feedback before investing time and resources into building a final product.

Interactive prototyping takes this a step further by allowing users to interact with a prototype, providing valuable insights into usability and functionality.

Getting Started

If you’re a product designer or developer, learning how to create interactive prototypes is a valuable skill to have.

It can help you to:

• Test and validate your design ideas before building a final product
• Get feedback from stakeholders and users early in the design process
• Save time and resources by identifying potential issues before development begins

Interactive prototyping is also useful for UX designers, UI designers, and anyone involved in the product design process.

How To

1. Define the purpose and goals of your prototype
2. Choose a prototyping tool that fits your needs (e.g. Sketch, Adobe XD, Figma)
3. Create wireframes and design screens for your prototype
4. Add interactions and animations to make your prototype interactive
5. Test your prototype with users and gather feedback
6. Iterate and refine your prototype based on user feedback

Best Practices

• Define the scope and purpose of your prototype before beginning
• Keep your prototype simple and focused on key user tasks
• Use realistic content and data to make your prototype feel more authentic
• Test your prototype with real users to gather valuable feedback

Examples

Let’s say you’re working on a new e-commerce website.

You want to test the checkout process to ensure it’s easy to use and doesn’t have any major issues.

Here’s how you could create an interactive prototype:

Designer: I’m going to create an interactive prototype to test the checkout process on our new e-commerce website.

I’ll use Figma to create wireframes and design screens for the checkout process.

Developer: Great idea! How will you make the prototype interactive?

Designer: I’ll add interactions and animations to simulate the user experience.

For example, when a user clicks the “Add to Cart” button, the item will be added to their cart and the cart icon will update to show the number of items in the cart.

Developer: That sounds like a good plan.

How will you test the prototype?

Designer: I’ll recruit a group of users to test the prototype and gather feedback.

I’ll use their feedback to make improvements and iterate on the design.

Developer: Sounds like a solid process.

Good luck with the prototype!