Superprototype

Why should I Superprototype?

While it is always possible and probably faster to create click-through prototypes, having a designer and a technologist work closely together improves the quality and fidelity of the final artifacts, enhances team collaboration, and helps both parties involved understand the design requirements and the technology or performance-related constraints. This will plant a seed of team collaboration that will prove extremely useful during the productization phase, even if the technologists involved in the rapid prototyping phase won't directly write the final product code.

Enforcing strict collaboration between design and technology is a winning strategy, especially when dealing with data-driven products, where access to real data is essential for truly understanding both the requirements and constraints. This close collaboration ensures that both teams can integrate design and technical decisions based on real-world data, leading to better, more informed solutions.

When should I Superprototype?

Superprototyping is useful whenever you need to launch a new product or develop a new feature. Rapid prototyping is an effective way to test design concepts, enhance them with the latest technological solutions, and validate both with users.

Superprototyping should be one of the first phases of every project, as it lays the foundation for all design and technology activities that will eventually lead to the final product. Ideally, it should begin soon after the ideation workshop, where stakeholder requirements are defined and accepted by all parties involved in the project.

Any subsequent design activity will use the results of prototype testing as the ground truth for further development. Technology-related results will be analyzed by the technology team and used as proof of concept for the creation of the final tech stack.

How do I Superprototype?

First thing, involve all the parties at the very beginning of the project. Any ideation workshop, client meeting, or stakeholder call should involve people from product, design, and technology. Technologists are not merely executors of orders; they can bring a lot of value to any project. Once the stakeholders' requirements are clearly defined and documented, put a designer and a technologist in the same room (even virtually—it might seem incredible, but it works!), throw away the key, and let them fight.

A first prototype will be ready in a very short time, ready for testing and review. It should push both design and technology to the limit. Iterate on it until you reach a fidelity level good enough to start testing and validation. Show it to users. Collect feedback, analyze it, and prioritize it. Some items will be extremely useful, others interesting and will be addressed in the final product, some will be trivial, and others useless or out of scope. Iterate again, including only the most interesting feedback. Alternate intensive design-and-coding sessions with testing and analysis phases. You won't fail.