Experience Before You Build
Identifying development challenges before they turn into problems is the ideal scenario. Prototyping offers a low risk, cost-effective way to examine potential difficulties before they even have a chance to develop.
Imagine you are building your first home. You’ve submitted housing requirements to the construction company and specify that your house needs three bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen, and a living room. It’s a pretty straight forward request. After all, this company builds houses every day. It shouldn’t be a difficult task at all.
When finished, you realize it’s not what you were expecting. Sure, it has three bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen, and a living room, but it is far too small, hard to maneuver though, and it’s painted pink. Plus, where was the dining room!? How could you forget to mention the dining room in your requirements document? And how could the construction company not know to just add it in the first place?
Much like building a house, while there are many generalities in software development, each individual piece of software is unique. Every application is filled with very specific and oftentimes very subjective points of functionality. Creating a blueprint from a set of requirements is not the only key to fleshing out ideas, but it gives you a way to show a development team exactly what it is you want and how you want it.
Just as you build a house from a blueprint, an application should be built from a prototype: a visual, clickable, fully functional representation of how an application will look and function when released.
With a prototype, you as a client can navigate through and interact with your application before committing to a development contract. On the other side, developers will use this functional blueprint as a definitive guide through the development process, knowing exactly how each piece of the application should look and function. No assumptions.
Why Prototyping Yields Better Development
- Developers have a clear, visual representation to reference without second-guessing themselves
- Time spent reworking application functionality is significantly reduced
- Hurdles are identified early in development rather than later
- Time spent in development is better utilized
- Overall project cost and risk are significantly lowered
Adage builds lightweight, interactive prototypes that people of varying technical backgrounds can test, provide feedback on, or use to collaborate with the development team. What this means for you is estimates are on target, expectations are clear, and the overall project stays on track. All of this saves time and money in the end.
Why You Should Prototype Your Next Project
- Requirements are visually represented instead of abstractly defined on paper
- Developers achieve a full-scope understanding of your application
- Trouble spots are discovered and resolved before development begins
- Prototype revisions are completed in days, compared to weeks in development
- You can perform usability testing before committing to any code
- Receive development estimates that are on-target
- Get through the development process quicker and more efficiently
