⏱️ Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

🏷️ Tags: Prototyping, Animation, Design, Development, Management.

In the fast-paced world of product development, the ability to visualise and test ideas efficiently is crucial — and that is where the advanced interactive prototyping comes. This approach has emerged as a game-changer, empowering designers and developers to bring their concepts to life before investing valuable time and resources in full-scale development. In this blog post, we will look at the concept of advanced prototyping, understand why this step is so useful in modern design and development processes, and show how it looks on a real use case of prototyping a new IT-Dimension website.

Definition

Advanced interactive prototyping is one of the steps in the product design and development process that involves creating interactive mockups and fully simulating the actual finished product, with all of its user flows, transitions, animations, and interactions. It allows designers, developers, or stakeholders to interact with the prototype and "feel" the user journey before moving on to full-scale development.

But what is the difference from the usual simple prototyping and wireframing?

The primary distinction lies in the static nature of traditional simple prototyping, which involves static layouts of various screens or pages without interactive elements. While it may be easier to implement, it falls short in several aspects when compared to advanced prototyping. Notably, a static prototype offers a less realistic user experience and lacks the ability to showcase complex design elements like animations or transitions. Additionally, it poses challenges in understanding navigation, testing user flow, obtaining feedback from stakeholders, and presenting an 'almost real' product before starting development.

What tools available to create advanced prototypes?

There are several widely-used solutions available for creating interactive animated prototypes, such as Figma, Adobe XD, After Effects, and Blender.

Benefits of advanced interactive prototyping

💡Ability to visualise and test even before starting development phase

💁‍♂️ One of the best options to demonstrate a product to clients with no need to develop a working app/website

🧩 Advanced animated prototypes are interactive, which is more attractive and realistic than static design prototypes

🤔 Ability for designers to explore a number of design options and come up with a best final decision

🔧 The prototypes are easy to modify, which is really helpful for designers on all stages of a prototype’s developing and refining