Why Prototype?

If you keep asking yourself this question, you can be assured that you are not alone in wondering what this “grayscreen prototyping” is all about.

For us it simply means the process of developing an easily modified and extensible model of a planned software system, or in our case, a website. What we do, we create one or a series of HTML/CSS documents that would represent the future web application in action.

It may seem at first sight that prototyping as the initial phase of the project is a bit too complex a process and that the customer’s as well as the provider’s time should be spared for later coding and design implementation. Many web development companies actually continue to use paper based technical specs and wireframes and encourage their clients to stick to this means of project planning.

We would like to explain why Yep!corp prefers “grayscreen” prototyping to the traditional paper documentation.

First and most important, we value every customer and strive therefore to effect our communication in the way most understandable for the client. Although paper is a great means to express one’s ideas and plans, it fails ultimately when it comes to disclosing the structure and functionality of a web application. How can one talk about a website using a notebook and a pen? Paper does leave too much space for imagination and in the long run this will appear to the mutual disfavor of the client and provider company.

Why so? Customers tend to always come up with new ideas, changes, and additions. “Well, this is not so bad”, one could comment. But, if most of the coding has already been finished, even a slight modification in the functionality is sure to cause some headache to the developer. And a forward-looking project manager will try to avoid these situations by getting the most out of the customer at the initial stage. At this point “grayscreen prototyping” is invaluable.

Second, the process of “grayscreen prototyping” ensures customer’s active participation in the process of communication and planning. As the prototype comes in an “easy-to-experience”, clickable form, the client has a perfect opportunity to test the future “look-and-feel” of the website and leave his comments before the process of coding has started. And since the prototype is “gray”, the customer is not distracted by design issues and concentrates fully on the functionality and structure of the web application.

Moreover, we have observed that prototyping has considerably reduced the number of design change rounds. This may be attributed to the fact that the customer gets a tangible idea of how his website should look in the end and most of the changes and additions, shown to and required from designers, are more specific and concise.

And finally, we have switched to “grayscreen” prototyping for a very simple reason: the end result is achieved within very short deadlines and customer satisfaction exceeds all our expectations. It is a true pleasure to see web applications go live and to receive a bunch of favorable feedbacks from the customers and users.

We love our job, we enjoy working on every project and most of all we value effective communication between us and our clients. And what can be a more simple and reasonable way to talk about a website than with the help of another website.