Glossary » prototyping

prototyping

the development of incomplete representations of a target system for testing purposes and as a way of understanding the difficulties of development and the scale of the problem.

Prototyping is an essential element of an iterative design approach, where designs are created, evaluated, and refined until the desired performance or usability is achieved. Prototypes can range from extremely simple sketches (low-fidelity prototypes) to full systems that contain nearly all the functionality of the final system (high-fidelity prototypes).

Here is a list of some prototyping terms and techniques:

• thumbnail sketch
• rough
• comp
• mockup
• paper prototype
• video prototype
• wizard of oz prototype
• functional prototype
• rapid-prototyping
• RAD tool (rapid application development)