A good entrepreneur never hesitates in making a decision. But it doesn’t mean you don’t have to give it a thought. Similar is the case when you are thinking about building a low-fidelity prototype.
Prototypes play an important role when it comes to UX design. A good prototype comes with an array of added perks for your product. From idea validation to user and usability testing, prototypes can give your product development a positive boost and make things easy in the long run.
In this article, we will look at some features that make low-fidelity prototypes unique.
While a prototype can help you with validating an idea and seeing in real time what that idea will look like. It also draws attention to missing features and requirement determination at an early stage.
But when the time to develop your next app comes, it’s important to understand how different stages of design impact the projects.
Prototypes are a functional map of your project as it is one of the most essential phases of UX development. But should you choose between lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes? Get a better understanding by taking a quick look at this comparison of low-fidelity vs high-fidelity prototypes.
What is a Low Fidelity Prototype?
Today there is a variety of prototypes that you can build in order to test your ideas and products. While a clickable prototype is a popular kind of prototype, there are several inexpensive and easy options too. One such type is a low-fidelity prototype that may appear in the form of a digital wireframe containing fewer details.
Here’s the definition for your quick understanding. A lo-fi prototype focuses on testing the user flows and how information is presented. With the help of a li-fi prototype, you can validate the concept early in the design process.
Depending on your project, low-fidelity prototypes are hand-drawn prototypes with no color or detail. The purpose of a low-fidelity prototype is to help you in visualizing the layout, test user flows, and test the navigation experience.
The designing stage that is presented and developed is all about functional planning. The role of low-fidelity is to validate the functionalities of the app project rather than decide on styling aspects.
Lo-fi prototypes are generally characterized by implementing low technology which includes using paper materials, cardboard, sketches, glue, block, and much more. The low-fidelity prototypes include basic details and sketches and are usually static.
If you don’t have the designs, wireframes and rough sketches can be used. It is easy to gather feedback from the users after testing the wireframe. They help teams in visualizing and testing concepts, requirements, and design assumptions at the beginning of a project.
A low-fidelity prototype doesn’t need to be flashy but communicates content, layout, and user flow. A product should have pixel-perfect designs, gestures, transitions, etc. A low-fidelity prototype can take the form of a rough paper sketch to represent a screen of the app, or a form of fully interactive wireframe simulation of the software.
Some of the common examples of lo-fi prototypes are – paper prototyping, clickable wireframes, etc.
A Few Characteristics of Low-Fidelity Prototype
1. Visual Design: The visual attributes of the final product are presented in shapes of elements, visual hierarchy, etc.
2. Content: The main elements of the content are included
3. Interactivity: During a testing process, the design acts as a computer and manually changes the design’s state in real time.
4. Basic Functionality: What you need to demonstrate is core functionality, user flow, and information architecture.
5. Essential Layout: It will help you in defining the layout of the project”s UI roughly.
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When to Use a Low-Fidelity Prototype?
Low-fidelity wireframes or prototypes are perfect for creating in the initial design phase as it’s easy to create and adjust with design iteration. You can build it from scratch without disrupting the design process or when you have limited time.
As we already know, that prototyping is an important part of design thinking in UX, low fidelity prototypes are great for brainstorming and demonstrating design ideas to the client and keeping them in a loop with developers and project stakeholders.
It is a great resource to bring out the team together on the same page regarding a project.
You can use it when you want to test a project idea before starting the development process or when the cost of high-fidelity prototyping is higher.
Although the contents and visuals are not described in detail, the stakeholders and team members can easily understand the project and have a much clearer image of the project.
What are the Benefits of Using a Lo-Fi Prototype?
In order to help you decide, consider whether the following benefits of low-fidelity wireframes meet your needs.
1. Conduct Testing
To produce a low-fidelity prototype, you need to prioritize functionality testing encouraging creative thinking levels and experimentation. The sketched interactions enable you to conduct usability testing and also allow you to validate app concepts in a short period of time. Your product is for your users, so you need to test it on them in this early stage of the design process.
2. Saves Time
The main advantage of low-fidelity prototype testing is that it can help save time. This helps you in getting quick feedback on ideas. Creating a clickable prototype takes time. You can spend more time designing more pages, or content. Low-fidelity prototypes are inexpensive because they can be done on a piece of paper or by simple wireframing.
3. Easy to Create
You can create and design a lo-fi in minutes whereas hi-fi takes a lot of time to design and develop. It doesn’t require special skills to create lo-fi as it only requires basic sketches and drawings to understand the app project. If you are someone who wants to go for a quick prototype option, a low-fidelity prototype is just the right choice for you.
Final Thoughts
Lo-Fi prototypes have been found useful in testing the bigger picture and details of the user interface. This tool helps you to tackle problems at an early stage time.
As compared to high-fidelity prototypes, lo-fi paper prototyping is efficient and saves both money and time in receiving quick feedback. Such UX deliverable is important to be considered in your app project.
If you are looking forward to getting a low-fidelity prototype developed, you are in the right place.
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