Building a powerful MVP: why prototyping is a key to successful MVP release
The ideas of MVP development and prototype creation are often confused. The difference between two terms is that prototype is a concept while MVP is its solution. Prototyping is a tactical move that gives opportunity to test the concept before software development. It can be made using different prototyping approaches:
- Low-fidelity prototypes
Rapid prototyping is effective for MVP development as it is focused on the user flow and navigation rather than on the design stuff. Thanks to it you can easily prioritize value over appearance. Low-fidelity prototypes are easy to collaborate with, thus Agile teams can make fast and effective decisions. Designers can use sketches, wireframes, storyboards and other techniques for this purpose. - High-fidelity prototypes
Interactive prototyping is used for building no-code MVPs and making an imitation of a running application. Such clickable prototypes can be made with design tools like InVision where different frames can be linked with each other. It means that you can interact with your prototype like with real application. High-fidelity prototypes help to estimate resources accurately and collaborate on the project easily.
The main purpose of any prototype is to maximize the output. What benefits can bring prototyping to your MVP development?
- Resource optimization
Prototyping can help you to avoid a lot of mistakes before development process. This way you will not waste money, time and efforts on unexpected updates. MVP draft can give you an idea of what special skills are required to implement a product. It will also simplify planning and shorten the time to find the right team. - Growing stakeholders’ interest
Prototyping makes your project valuable on the very early stage. Interactive prototypes can help you to find additional investors and give them an opportunity to get hands-on with the project. Initial investments may change the course of development and provide new opportunities for your project. - Communication improvement
Prototypes are often used by Agile teams as a means of communication and project management. Prototyping tools with an ability of commenting and multiplayer mode allow to collaborate on the project easily. All that helps to provide a development team with a clear idea of how the future product should work and how to avoid misunderstanding around team members. - Requirements’ clarification
Prototype creation helps to form a final product purpose and identify the core features for the market-ready MVP. Visualization will help you to understand what you need to add and what to remove. After the prototype is done, all the project requirements should be analyzed and reviewed to improve the quality of MVP in advance. It will help you to make more informed technical decisions during MVP development. - Prototype validation
Creating a prototype for your product, you can gather useful feedback before launching an MVP. Prototyping also helps to validate which idea of user scenario will be the most effective through the interaction experience. It can be used as a part of usability testing helping to identify issues that need to be solved.
Prototyping goes hand in hand with MVP development. Prototyping approaches should be chosen according to specific MVP needs and goals. Exposit team can provide you with prototypes of different complexity to simplify the future MVP development.
