5 Reasons To Build A Mobile App Prototype
Discovering if anyone truly believes in your mobile app is an important part of the development process. Getting to a “no” doesn’t mean that your idea is a failure. It means you’ve just saved yourself a significant amount of time and effort developing an actual app, and also learned a lot about what your real app should do. This is where prototyping comes in. We outline prototyping and the 5 Reasons To Build A Mobile App Prototype.
A prototype or blueprint is the first or preliminary visualization of a working product. In mobile app development, prototypes build an understanding of the product’s look and feel, which helps test how customers use and react to the overall user experience (UX) design. Using a prototype for usability testing allows for enough time to make changes to critical design issues before the product reaches development and it becomes too late and too expensive to make major changes to the mobile app.
The mobile app prototyping stage helps product teams learn how users interact with the preliminary product to uncover new solutions or determine whether the existing solution is successful. The learnings from a prototype then allow the product team to reframe one or several of the problems identified from the previous design thinking stages. As a result, everyone on the project has a more accurate understanding of the challenges users face when they use the product in the context of their life.
” With over 1.5 million apps in the App Store, there’s enough competition to safely say that the “build it and they will come” philosophy won’t be enough to make your app successful. ” – Localytics
1. Save On Development Costs
1. A mobile app prototype saves costs in the long run. Problems can be solved at the beginning rather than towards the end of the development process when more resources will have been invested in the app. Prototype research is the mitigator – you’ll spend less if you do upfront research, tests and fixes. The closer you get to launch the more expensive changes are.
2. Identifying Product Improvements
Mobile app prototyping validates an early concept and provides opportunities for the exploration of new ideas early on in the development process. During the prototyping phase of the design thinking process, user testing can help identify possible improvements to make before the product is complete. A prototype is the product foundation that is continually improved until the mobile app meets business goals and is marketable.
3. Client and Stakeholder Involvement
A Mobile App prototype gives investors/clients comfort around the technical considerations of the project before launch. A functional and interactive prototype will leave a lasting impression on investors and can help establish support and secure funding for the full project.
Stakeholders need to have co-ownership of the project’s design ideas and decisions. E.g. Developers might have a particular design idea but the concept might be hard to take to market. The Sales department, Operations, Upper management, Product managers, Marketing, Developers, Designers, Stakeholders, and Clients will help examine problems in greater detail from several perspectives and backgrounds. Encouraging feedback and discussion goes a long way towards creating a product that solves user pain points well.
Approaching prototyping collectively helps ensure the final product closely embodies the company’s ideas and features, while ultimately meeting specific project goals.
4. Clear Time Estimations
A visual representation of the complexity of the app allows for a detailed discussion on how certain features will work and the time needed to create those features. This serves to reduce the amount of “rework” needed on the app. Design teams and client are able to get on the same page once they understand the time needed to bring the prototype to life.
5. User Testing Before Launch
Developers are intimately familiar with the intricacies of the app and therefore will often have a difficult time evaluating the app objectively as a new user might.
The product owner can also bypass the process due to its apparent simplicity. It’s easy to think, “Of course my app can be used to collect and deliver pizza – I built it that way!” However small intricacies as finding the ‘order’ button, color scheme and icons may make the app difficult or not desirable for the end-user.
Your team can make the right optimizations, based on real data & real feedback from real users and that is paramount to have before committing to launching the app.
SovTech offers a full turnkey solution when creating prototypes. Our global team of expert Developers, Testers, Analysts, Project Managers review suggested tech stacks to find the best solution for you, We carefully examine and map out User stories (time estimations and development tasks are broken down into granular detail), and we also map out the flow of information/ data through API’s and third-party integrations giving you more value and insight than just an app prototype design.
