Proto.io is a tool build specifically for designing prototypes. And it includes lots of useful features that will make your prototyping process a whole lot easier. The app works pretty much like a drag and drop website builder. It includes pre-made components and content blocks you can add to create unique app interfaces with ease. Adobe XD is a powerful UI/UX design and prototyping tool for apps, built by the world’s leader in creative technologies. With XD, you can quickly go from wireframes and mockups to static UI designs to interactive prototypes that simulate a user experience — using just one tool for your whole. Create a prototype, wireframes, and mockups online for FREE. Draftium - the best website prototyper tool ever. Capture, trim and export video of your prototype directly in Origami. Share Nearby with Origami Live. Easily share prototypes in critique, reviews, or just for fun. Origami performance gets an upgrade. Faster patch editor, faster viewer, faster everything. 4.5x Faster Patch Editor. 2x. Creating Paper Prototypes. Paper-based prototyping is the quickest way to get feedback on your preliminary site information architecture, design, and content. Paper prototypes are easy to create and require only paper, scissors and sticky notes. Use one piece of paper for each Web page you create and then have users try them out in a usability.
Are you thinking to deliver an awesome user experience? Is it bothering you to simulate a final product? Here a website prototype steps in. A website prototype breathes a life into the design idea of your website. It’s just like presenting the menu before serving the meal !! Read on to see how the website prototyping reveals the face of the final product to the client…
A website prototype is an interactive demo or mockup of a website to see how it looks in the early phase of designing. It is important to build a prototype to have a clear idea about the ability of a website to evaluate and work through usability issues.
So let’s understand first what the website prototyping actually is.
Get familiar With Website Prototyping software
A website prototype will allow everyone to visualize quickly. This is done by exposing missing requirements and unnecessary complexity. It allows project stakeholders to test theories and ideas regarding layout and structure of the website. It gives the client a greater sense of involvement and ownership. Along with this, it helps the developer to estimate development costs, timescale, skills and resource requirements. Prototyping basically eliminates ambiguities and improves accuracy in interpretation of system requirements and functionality. Moreover, it checks the usability of your design before investing too many resources into its development. It can save hours of trial and error filtering in later stages of development. A website prototyping software can serve your purpose to rapidly demonstrate a website.
Website Prototyping Software
In case, the client wants to see the design before assigning the project; a website prototyping software plays an important role. It showcases the project flow with important elements of the final product. A website prototyping software helps to create a picture of the real product to the client. The user can give feedback and ask the related queries before the actual development starts. There is a number of website prototyping software available in the market like Invision, Moqups, proto.io etc. Similarly, you can create a website prototype with TemplateToaster. It is a complete website builder supporting almost all popular Content Management Systems. We can create an unlimited number of website prototypes without any restrictions with its Trial Version. In the trial version, images will bear the watermarks of the product and you can’t save the projects. But it will not bother the process of prototyping.
In fact, you can give the experience of a live project to the clients. It is an easy-to-use solution. Above all, if you create a website prototype with TemplateToaster web design software Trial version, you are only a step behind from your live project. As soon as it gets approval by the project stakeholders, you can just export this as a theme and you are ready to work on a real website.
Steps to Create a Prototype
So, let’s delve into the process of creating a prototype with the Trial version of TemplateToaster. You will see the steps to create a model web page with TemplateToaster. The main interface will look like as shown below from where you will design the pages.
1. Designing the Header
First of all, we will design the Home page and start with the header. The layout of the page will be Fluid.
We will set a “full width” Header. Set height according to the preference.
Then, write the email and contact number in the left corner of the header, set the typography of the text and put the required social media icons in the right corner from social icons option.
2. Designing the Menu
Once you are done with the header, next, comes the menu. Go on the Menu Tab and select the desired logo for your site or you can browse a new one too. Along with the logo write the website title and set its typography like height, width, the font color of the text etc.
Now set the typography of menu items i.e homepage here as shown below from menu button properties. Lucky nugget casino bonuses.
3. Designing the Slideshow
Now move to next section, slideshow. Go to Slideshow tab and just check the Slide Show option. Once the slideshow appears on the screen, just select Slide Show Position as “Below” and set its Background image as shown below:
Make it full width. Draw a text area with help of Text Areas option and drag it to any desired location.
https://free-creative.mystrikingly.com/blog/the-grape-escape-game. Write the content, style it and put a button labeling “LEARN MORE” from Elements Tab.
Lastly, in Slideshow, design the pagination with help of Format Tab as shown below:
4. Designing the Content Area
In Content Tab, select a 2-column layout for content as shown below: Red riding hood slot machine.
In the first column, we will keep the content and edit it through “Editor Tab” like its Font size, color, style, line height etc.
Now, in Second column put an image from Image option of Editor tab.
Now set the margin & padding of the first content cell according to the size of an image in the 2nd cell.
Similarly, we will add two more content rows showcasing the products as “Our Services“ and “Testimonials” as the last row.
The second row will display all the product and services provided by the company whereas the last row contains the Client Testimonials.
5. Designing the Footer
For Footer, we will keep the 4-column layout. We will manage About Us, QLinks, Services, Contact Us sections in the footer with desired Background Color and Typography. And lastly, we add a single cell row to show copyright particulars as shown below:
The final prototype will look as follows:
Now as you are done with designing the website, you can use it as a prototype and send to your client. All you have to do is, simply export the theme files from TemplateToaster and upload on any free hosting service such as 000webhost.com or hostinger.com. Now you can share this hosted website with a client.
So basically with TemplateToaster, you can create a high-fidelity website prototype. It convinces the customers before making a significant investment.
In a Word
Website Prototyping is a crucial step to find design issues at early stages of project development life cycle. It allows you to iterate the design concepts quickly. A website prototyping software makes your task easier. It does so by presenting and gathering the feedback in a better way from the user. You can create a website prototype easily, faster and at no cost with TemplateToaster WordPress website builder. It will give a realistic visual guide to the finished project. Once your prototype gets the approval of the client, you can easily convert it to a live theme in no time. It is a rapid, cost-effective and a better way to design website prototypes.
A prototype is a draft version of a product that allows you to explore your ideas and show the intention behind a feature or the overall design concept to users before investing time and money into development. A prototype can be anything from paper drawings (low-fidelity) to something that allows click-through of a few pieces of content to a fully functioning site (high-fidelity).
Site Prototyping Tools
Benefits of Prototypes
It is much cheaper to change a product early in the development process than to make change after you develop the site. Therefore, you should consider building prototypes early in the process. Prototyping allow you to gather feedback from users while you are still planning and designing your Web site.
Nielsen has found that the biggest improvements in user experience come from gathering usability data as early as possible. He notes that it’s cheaper to make changes before any code has been written than to wait until after the implementation is complete.
The Difference between Sketches and Prototypes
Although the difference between sketches, wireframes, and prototypes isn’t always clear, there are differences in their intentions. Bill Buxton, in his book Sketching User Experiences, provides a list of descriptors that help explain the differences:
Sketch | Prototype |
---|---|
Evocative | Didactic |
Suggest | Describe |
Explore | Refine |
Question | Answer |
Propose | Test |
Provoke | Resolve |
Tentative | Specific |
Non-committal | Depiction |
Tracy Lepore further defines the differences by visually showing the continuum from sketch to design by depicting the relationships between what the design is trying to communicate, the amount of iteration between phases, and the fidelity of the design.
High-Fidelity and Low-Fidelity Prototyping
There is an on-going debate about using low versus high fidelity prototyping and how much a prototype should resemble the final version of your design. Both have been found to be basically equivalent in finding usability issues (Walker et al 2002). With that said, there are things to consider when trying to decide which option is best for your project:
- Low-fidelity prototypes are often paper-based and do not allow user interactions. They range from a series of hand-drawn mock-ups to printouts. In theory, low-fidelity sketches are quicker to create. Low-fidelity prototypes are helpful in enabling early visualization of alternative design solutions, which helps provoke innovation and improvement. An additional advantage to this approach is that when using rough sketches, users may feel more comfortable suggesting changes.
- High-fidelity prototypes are computer-based, and usually allow realistic (mouse-keyboard) user interactions. High-fidelity prototypes take you as close as possible to a true representation of the user interface. High-fidelity prototypes are assumed to be much more effective in collecting true human performance data (e.g., time to complete a task), and in demonstrating actual products to clients, management, and others.
Creating Paper Prototypes
Paper-based prototyping is the quickest way to get feedback on your preliminary site information architecture, design, and content. Paper prototypes are easy to create and require only paper, scissors and sticky notes.
Site Prototyping Software
Use one piece of paper for each Web page you create and then have users try them out in a usability test. Users indicate where they want to click to find the information and you change the page to show that screen.
Prototyping Apps
The process helps you to gather feedback early in the design process, make changes quickly, and improve your initial designs.
References
Site Prototype
- A Case Study of How Interface Sketches, Scenarios and Computer Prototypes Structure Stakeholder Meetings by Johanson and Arvola
- M. Walker, L. Takayama and J.A. Landay, High-fidelity or low-fidelity, paper or computer? Choosing attributes when testing web prototypes, Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 46th Annual Meeting, September 29–October 4, 2002, Baltimore, USA, HFES, Santa Monica (2002), pp. 661–665.