Try It On Paper

Creating programs and websites, software, and even hardware, entails careful consideration in terms of its user interface. Sometimes, in the planning stages of these programs, we get caught up in the big picture and are unable to foresee certain details that affect how our programs will pan out in a step by step manner.

The traditional way to develop programs is to build a prototype and test it. It would be fortunate if after testing, you will only have to do some minor revisions, if at all. The problem arises when you find out that your program has a user problem, which will entail for you to trash most of your hard work to solve the obstacle.

To help programmers and users, a user testing method called paper prototyping has been popularized by many top technology brands that boast of programs and hardware that are very user friendly.

The main difference of paper prototyping and regular prototypes is that paper prototyping utilizes paper as the medium to plot out programs. The method of prototyping is usually best conducted like a focused group discussion where paper prototypes are employed to simulate the program to be developed.

With paper prototyping, you can either utilize printouts of your wire frames or hand sketch your designs. You can even use a combination of both. Prototyping experts say that paper, scissors, glue and sticky paper are a must during the paper prototyping process.

These materials are made to simulate your programs so that through the interactive process of going through the paper prototype, you can find out if your product ranks high on usability. This paper prototyping process also saves you time and effort because it allows you outsider insight on your product, way before you even begin to actually build it. With this method of testing for usability, you will never have to "go back to the drawing boards" because you won't leave the drawing phase until all kinks are ironed out.

This method of testing is particularly useful for the production of websites, programs, and software for use in a personal computer or a mobile phone interface. You can learn a lot of valuable lessons from paper prototyping. For instance, if in your paper prototype, you find that the users testing the mock up tends to click a particular feature which was not designed to be a link, then you know that it should actually be one.

Paper prototyping can save you a lot of time, effort and cost at the planning stage, even before you begin to write codes or start building.

The Fast Gun of Prototyping

Simply put, a rapid prototyping process is a procedure or method wherein a design is tested during the early parts of its development.

This type has been proven to be more useful in projects that involve large-scale designs. From the name, rapid prototyping involves quickly constructing a scale down model of large objects through the aid of computerized three dimensional images.

These virtual designs are broken into parts or cross sections which identically represents the actual object. When building the prototype, a machine will read the information from the computer and would construct the images segment by segment until the whole prototype has been created.

Depending on the type of the machines and the models size, constructing a prototype using the rapid prototyping process may take from 3 to more than 70 hours. Others even take months to complete.

Usually CAD is used to construct the virtual model which later on is converted to the STL file format. A rapid prototype machine then processes the .STL file and creates layers of the model.

Layer upon layer, the segments are piled on top of each other until the model is created. These layers are glued together by using lasers. These layers are made of either liquid or powdered materials.

Afterwards, when all the layers have been laid down, the superstructure of the model is removed revealing the unpolished surfaces of the prototype. The prototype model is then cleaned.

A lot of companies prefer using rapid prototyping because it offers the best benefits to them. Using rapid prototyping processes increase effective communication, decrease development time, reduce the prevalence of costly mistakes, lessen any sustaining engineering changes, and help extends product life through the addition of essential features and remove unneeded features during the early developments of the design.

By allowing engineers, manufacturers and even the marketing and purchasing people take a look at the product during the onset of its development they can identify and correct mistakes while it is still cheaper to do so.

Among the types of rapid prototyping processes include stereolithography, selective laser sinthering, laminated object manufacturing, solid ground curing and rapid tooling. The standard interface between CAD software and rapid prototyping machines is the STL file format.

MacroMind Director (MMD) is another type of prototyping tool which combines a text, graphics, animation as well as music and other sound, and video. This type of tool has been used more commonly in film, engineering, education and business industries. Most of the output is simulations, visualizations and presentations.