What Are Vision Prototype Services?
A vision prototype can take many forms depending on the context and objective, from high-fidelity interface concepts to a future-state journey map that communicates blue-sky thinking. Vision prototypes can be an effective way to show, rather than just tell, ideas or concepts to stakeholders and others in your organization.
We Help Organizations Transform
Companies have a lot of pressure to change, and a vision prototype can be a change agent. A surprising number of companies lack a common product vision, and it's often difficult to achieve given conflicting organizational structures. Siloed groups, different definitions for the same words, and conflicting goals are often what we see as a significant barrier to alignment.
Without a clear goal, design teams can work in fragmented ways. Divergent teams might create elements that don't align with each other or find themselves working toward different objectives. A vision prototype can serve as a consistent and clear reminder of a shared focus to keep product design moving smoothly. When your designers can all focus on the same vision prototype, it can reduce or eliminate any irrelevant elements that could deter from the final goal and use up valuable time and effort.
A vision prototype does more than keep your team on track. It can also be a powerful representation of the types of things you want to see in the final digital product. It identifies your overall image and lets you share it with stakeholders and others who need to know what's going on but might not be involved with development.
Vision prototypes don't need to be time-consuming, either. Even low-fidelity prototyping can provide extensive benefits. As long as your vision prototype identifies clear goals and creates a basic structure for the design team to follow, it can help add focus and narrow down the concept for stakeholders. Many prototype formats can also be used for user testing.
The Power of the Design Process
Blink believes the design process is the most powerful tool for alignment in these situations. Done properly, the design process integrates values, goals, and language from stakeholders so the vision feels like a natural extension of the company. And it's grounded in something that all organizations can agree on — making the customer happy.
Some of the benefits of vision prototyping include:
- Clear visual representation
- Focused design efforts
- Identification of priority elements
- Testable programs to gather user data
Vision prototypes may build on user experience (UX) design research and various usability tests. Information from your target audience can tell you what they are looking for in a product and allow you to tailor your design toward desired features or fix any pain points. Compile all these elements into your prototype so they can power your UX design and show any stakeholders what you're working toward.
Knowing what you want the end result to look like allows you to change design workflows and work in the most efficient way. Maybe you want to see how a certain element's design performs in user tests before you implement it throughout the program. Creating a roadmap from your prototype can help you keep all parties working efficiently and building on each others' work.
Prototypes are also excellent for gathering data on the customer experience. Since low-fidelity prototypes don't take much time or money to put together, you can test multiple versions with your users to see which they prefer and why. You could also use high-fidelity prototypes to see how your users interact with the product. If you're using an interaction design approach, you may need to go through several rounds of tests to see how people respond.
Do Your Need to Create a Product Vision?
Are you ready to wow your company with innovative, new prototypes? Let Blink help you become the change agent your industry needs. Contact our team of expert designers to see the impact of our work.