10 Tips to Ace Your UI Design Prototyping

• Table of Content
  • How to Ace Your UI Design Prototyping?
  • Why do You Need a Prototype?

Prototypes in design mean the sample of your design. It is regarded as the simulation of the final product. As a designer, you first need to sketch and develop a prototype of your product with a prototyping tool or manually. Then, when a client meets you as a creative, you are expected to design a sample or replica of the product.

How to Ace Your UI Design Prototyping?

1. Use a Responsive Software

Like I said earlier, there is numerous design software online. As a designer, you should ensure that you go for the best. It is advisable to use MockFrame.

MockFrame is a responsive and easy-to-use design software developed by project500apps. Almost all the designers that use this software can attest to its ease of usage. In addition, the software has flexible tools and features to help you design your prototypes.

MockFrame has an array of ready-made templates. As a designer, you are likely to run out of ideas. Sometimes, you get a job that you have never done before. All you need to do is check the ready-made templates and look for those that suit the task at hand. This wireframe tool has templates that range from simple to sophisticated ones.

When you build a UI mockup, it will always come out perfect. This is because the tools available on MockFrame are professional standards. You do not require coding knowledge to develop your prototype from scratch.

These features are some of the benefits you stand to gain when using responsive wireframe tool such as MockFrame for your UI design prototypes.

2. Begin with a Low Fidelity Prototype

Design is like building construction. You have to start from the foundation. To ace your UI design prototypes, ensure that you start from a simple sketch. Low fidelity prototype involves sketching out the initial parts of your design.

You can draw the User flows and wireframe to divide the screen. You need to build out your screen layouts and sketch the UI element sizing and positioning. You will then add the basic navigation flow and highlight your core UI design

3. Proceed to the Interaction Design

This stage is the high-fidelity design part. At this stage, you need to design your prototype to show more functionality. You are now moving from an ordinary sketch to a responsive workflow.

You can now start inputting data and text. The high-fidelity design stage is where you add micro-interactions. Adding micro-interaction will make the product more intuitive and usable.

4. Your Choice of Color

Knowing what color to combine in your UI prototyping is essential. At this stage, you either implement your chosen color palette based on the brand or client’s guidelines or copy from the templates available. In addition, it would help if you considered color gradients, tones, and shadows.

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5. Typography

Another tip to ensure you develop a good UI design prototype is to use the right and legible font and typeface. The style and size of the font are essential. The typographic style will determine the user experience and basic usability when you are done with the prototype and testing stage.

The clients will mostly reject the prototype if the font size and typeface are not legible or balanced with the pages.

6. Use of Images

It is advisable to use placeholders for your images at the low fidelity prototype stage. Because at this stage, the focus is not on the image but on your layout and navigation. While at the high-fidelity prototype stage, you should use pictures of quality definition and high resolution. Your prototype is already meaningful at this stage, and you are edging closer to the end product.

7. Prototyping Forms

Most designers mistake the use of extreme, over-complicated, and hard-to-understand forms in their user interface prototype. Instead, ensure your prototype form includes conditional interactions with clear and simple messages. This way, your mobile app or software will not be too wordy.

8. Consider the Devices and Screen Type

When prototyping UI, ensure you test the prototypes on all screen-type mobile devices. In addition, use the prototype on personal computers, desktops, and tablets. So that when you actualize the prototype into your final product, your users will not have a problem using the app or web page on their devices.

9.Take a Feature at a Time

You do not have to design or sketch all the features simultaneously. Keep your prototype as simple as possible and focus on one component at a time. You are likely to get it wrong when you start from the complex feature or combine a simple part with a complex one.

10. Test Your Prototype at Every Stage

The final tip is to test your prototype at every stage. As soon as you add a feature, you should try it and see how it runs. When you wait till the final phase before testing, you might encounter a cumbersome error that you could have averted from scratch.

Why do You need a Prototype?

The purpose of building a prototype in User interface design is to test whether the flow of the product is responsive and smooth. If the prototypes show that the flow is not responsive, you have to go back to your drawing board.

Sometimes, your UI design requires collaboration with other designers. You might be unable to explain what you want them to add or what you are building for them. Instead, you will create a prototype and use it as an illustration.

You can create prototypes at every stage of your UI design. A standard UI design will have a prototype for all the pages. For instance, if you build a mobile application, all the User interface pages would have a prototype.

When you build a prototype in the user interface (UI), you can test the ideas and pre-launch the product within your team before you finally develop it to a better user experience (UX). There are several wireframe tools online. However, as a wireframe designer, you have to ensure that the one you adopt for your tasks will help you bring your idea to life.

Conclusion

The most crucial tip to ace your UI Design Prototypes is to use the best software. Using prototyping software like MockFrame will guide you into considering the other angles.

To get started, you can check out MockFrame for your UI Prototype Design.