Before you invest in prototyping

This is one of those topics that looks small until it costs you something. Before you spend anything on prototyping, it is worth confirming a few things are already true.

Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

Prerequisites

• You can describe the outcome you want in one sentence
• Someone owns it after the work is done
• A clickable prototype surfaces confusion no static mockup will
• You have a way to tell whether it worked

What to watch for

Prototypes are for learning, not for reuse as production code. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

Test with five people and you will find most of the problems. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

How to tell if yours is fine

The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. Three things worth confirming about prototyping before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• A clickable prototype surfaces confusion no static mockup will — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

The point is not perfection, it is knowing which of these you have consciously chosen to skip.