Let's create a PROTOTYPE!
This is where some of you are going to want to hit UNSUBSCRIBE, but hang in there. I promise I will only do a few of these geekier posts.
The next step in my founder journey was to create a blueprint for what I want to build via a prototype. Creating a prototype for a digital product is similar to creating one for any other idea or invention. It is the visual representation of that idea, and many times the prototype only slightly represents what ends up being the final product. Sometimes a prototype serves no purpose than to inspire other inventions or ideas. Take something like the refrigerator. The first form of artificial refrigeration was invented by a guy named William Cullen, a Scottish scientist. The principles he introduced in his prototype still remain in today's refrigerators despite the fact that Cullen never turned his theory into practice. 🤗🤗2 Geek points if you are still reading.
A prototype can be anything from a few sketches on some napkins to a functional app. The bottom line is that it should help you to fully explore the experience you want to create for your customer/user. The process of prototyping should help you answer design questions along the way. In What do Prototypes Prototype?, Stephanie Houde and Charles Hill group prototyping questions into questions of role "what can a product or service do for a person’s life", questions of look and feel "what’s the experience?", and questions of implementation "is this even possible?".
I'm a very visual learner so I needed to create a prototype that looked and felt like what I want the Gatsby app to become so that I could fully think through all the bells and whistles I want to create for my primary user-THE HOST. I basically designed a series of screens. Something that most of us take for granted when we are quickly clicking through an app or website. If the design is done well, you should not have to hunt for anything for too long and the application should seamlessly move you through the user experience as intended. That said, this is a never-ending process. I found so many things after this first iteration that had to be done and redone and still will be done again as I evaluate how to create solutions. Much like that first refrigerator design, what you get in your hands in a few months will look vastly different and vastly BETTER!!! Did you make it to the end? 🤗🤗🤗🤗4 Geek points!!