What is Evolutionary Prototype?
Before a product or system undergoes full-scale deployment, it is crucial to take it through a suitable prototyping model. Evolutionary prototyping is one of the most popular prototyping models that have displayed great success and explains why several project developers trust this technique. If you are wondering what evolutionary prototyping is all about, then cease your worry. In this article, we shall give you a clear picture of what evolutionary prototyping is.
- Part 1: What is Evolutionary Prototype
- Part 2: Advantages of Evolutionary Prototyping
- Part 3: The Best Online Prototype Tool
What is Evolutionary Prototype
Before we dive into what evolutionary prototype is, we must go back to the meaning and the need for a prototype. A prototype is a process of developing a product or system that mimics or simulates the actual product or system. Basically, a product prototype is used to obtain customer feedback in a bid to improve the design and functionality of the product before it goes live. There are several prototyping models used in the software industry, namely rapid throwaway prototyping, incremental, extreme, and evolutionary prototype.
The evolutionary prototyping model combines incremental and extreme models. This model involves a series of prototyping refinements. The first assignment is to design and split the system into several independent modules. Each module is given required functionalities and then presented to the customers. The customer feedback is gathered, and the model is again refined. This process goes on and on until the final satisfactory prototype is created. It will reach a point where you and your customers reach a consensus that this product is good. That is now the point where you stop the cycles of fine-tuning the project according to the customer's feedback. In general, the prototype evolves in each stage, and this explains why it is called an evolutionary prototype. Most often, the series of stages involved will more concentrate on the functionality as opposed to the cosmetic.
Generally, the evolutionary model undergoes the basic series of steps, as summarized below.
- Create rough specifications of the requirements.
- Break the program into several models or cores that can be fronted independently.
- Add relevant functionalities to the model
- Submit to customers, collect the feedback, and modify the prototype.
- Repeat steps (iii and iv) until a satisfactory prototype is arrived at.
- Develop the next features and repeat the process.
- Maintain the prototype.
The evolutionary model is suitable if you are trying a new product or technology that is not clearly understood at the moment. In such a scenario, instant feedbacks may not be possible until the customers try to use it. Once they have tried it on their own, their understanding of the product improves, and you can now gather feedback to improve it. Also, big projects with complex functionality would suit this model. This is because such sophisticated projects have several individual functionalities that ought to be checked once. Besides, it is easy to split a large project into several modules that can be presented to customers for invaluable feedback. If you don't clearly understand the requirement of your project or not yet fully made up your mind on the requirements, evolutionary prototyping could be a great model. The feedback will be of much essence as it will help streamline your requirements as per the customer needs.
Advantages of Evolutionary Prototyping
As aforementioned above, evolutionary prototyping relies on several cycles to improve the project prototype. Of course, there are several other prototyping models out there used in the software industry, but evolutionary prototyping is fashionable due to some of the advantages listed below.
- Large projects- There is no porotype model that is suitable for larger projects than evolutionary prototyping. This is because large projects can be easily broken down into models that can be deployed separately to the customers. One of the major setbacks for evolutionary prototyping is the difficulty of dividing the project into several segments that are acceptable to the customer and easily incrementable from the developer's end. However, distributing a large project is not as problematic as smaller projects.
- Reduced error- The fact that the project is segmented into modules means separate modules can be thoroughly tested. Through thorough testing, it is possible to substantially minimize errors in the different models of the core project.
- Minimize Resources- With evolutionary prototyping, the need to pull massive resources for system development at once. Breaking them and doing a series of refurbishment ensures the several models are deemed suitable independently.
- Meets user requirements- It is always crucial to deploy a product that fits the needs of the consumers. By putting the prototypes into cycles of feedback and refinements according to users' demands, it is possible to integrate user needs into the system. There will be no complaints afterward from the customers as they take part in the design.
- Chance to experiment- With evolutionary prototyping, customers will experience the product and thus is a chance to experiment on the target customers even before the original complete version is released.
- Since it is possible to refine the prototype, new retirements can be easily included.
- The developed prototypes can be reused by the developer in the future to lessen the time taken.
- It is easy to detect missing functionality.
The Best Online Prototype Tool
As a product designer, developer, and manager, you always wish to have that all in one powerful prototype tool. If you were to put all your statements in a single word, you would say Wondershare Mockitt. Yes, it is the best online prototype tool you can install. Not just because it is a prototype tool but only because it has all you would require from an ultimate prototype tool.
Wondershare Mockitt is a fast and robust design, prototyping, and collaboration tool. It has both offline and online versions, with both having incredible features. With the help of several built-in widgets and icons, you can create stunning interfaces in a matter of minutes. Just open the widget panel, drag and drop the target widgets and start creating magnificent interfaces. You can turn your static screens to more interactive displays with the help of transition, gestures, and animation features. There are numerous UI assets and templates for a vast range of industries. Customize to fit your need and save them in your asset library for reuse.
With the online platform, you can collaborate across all devices, perform real-time co-editing, and keep every team member synced. Because it is easy to bring every member in your enterprise together, product managers, designers, and developers can seamlessly collaborate and manage all sizes of teams.
Features
- It has numerous widgets and icons.
- It offers several UI assets and over 20 different industry templates that are updated continuously.
- Team members can collaborate in real-time and co-edit the project. This means designers can receive feedbacks and comments in real-time.
- Users can animate, add gestures, and transition to pages to make them more interactive.
- It has an elegant and easy to use interface.
- It brings everyone in an enterprise together and is thus suitable for all sizes and types of organizations.
- The handoff specs make it easy to communicate with members.
