The definition of functional requirements for a website or a business application is a critical phase in the development process. Aligning those requirements with the needs of your target audience is a prerequisite to launching a tool that will be quickly adopted and meet business expectations for ROI.
Prototyping is an excellent technique that enables your development team to get valuable audience feedback and address issues pertaining to functional priorities and usability before they become costly downstream problems. Prototyping provides the additional benefit of allowing the team to share its vision and begin building a fan base among your audience members. These fans can become powerful allies in driving adoption of the completed tool.
Despite its benefits, prototyping and early stage audience testing can be perceived as slowing down the development process and creating unnecessary front-end costs. We believe that when done correctly, prototyping’s benefits far outweigh its costs. Here are a few things we’ve learned along the way to help ensure the process is efficient and effective. More »

