Sounds obvious, and yet I feel like I don't see it happen very often. I think we can often get stuck trying to deliver the end product immediately without going through enough exploration. And sometimes going through a bit of "pain" up front is where you find the real gold.
This of course ties into good planning generally: specs, wireframes etc. But I feel prototyping specifically can sometimes be overlooked.
Which is a shame because you can often find a better way to do something.
- Or realise the UI you had in your mind isn't quite right.
- Or that actually we should not spend all that budget on that bit, but this bit etc.
- Or maybe it should do this really cool thing too to really sing!
This is a prototype polygon expansion search for a client of mine.
We had a dream outcome but weren't sure about feasibility (technical, performance, scale, ongoing costs etc.)
Building the prototype highlighted things which allowed us to tweak our approach, but then also gave us the confidence to proceed. And we found out some things by doing that initial investment which actually made it a lot easier to deliver it when we go to production.
It's better to invest a bit at the start rather than deal with disappointment later.
Like I say, sounds obvious - so maybe we should do it more?