How to Create Clickable Prototypes
Interactive prototyping helps ensure that your product works exactly as you plan. If you cannot test your prototypes before releasing products to the public, you could receive unexpectedly negative feedback. Learn how to create clickable prototypes so you can control the narrative and keep your users coming back often.
Interactive features have psychological effects on users
Some of the most successful apps rely on interactive features to keep users engaged. The social media industry, for example, has learned how to tap into numerous psychological traits that encourage people to keep using their apps. Instagram and Facebook have been accused of using “behavioral design” to condition people into treating their phones like addictive drugs.
Of course, you could level the same accusation at casino games. In a competitive industry, designers will find ways to make their products as appealing as possible. That may involve taking advantage of how humans interact with the world. Is it unfair, or just good design?
Interactive features like clickable buttons and icons create a physical connection between people and apps. Instead of passively watching content on a screen, they get to play a role in what happens. It has an obvious psychological effect that gives users rewarding feelings.
Interactive features make apps easier to use
Interactive prototyping isn’t just about increasing the presence of feel-good neurotransmitters in the user’s brain. They can also provide helpful information that makes it easier for people to use products, improving user experience in general
Adding microinteractions to websites and apps can:
- Improve navigation by making it obvious where users can find the features they need.
- Offer immediate feedback that tells users how to complete actions.
- Direct the user’s attention to other features, tools, and pieces of content.
You know that you want your final product to have interactive features when you release it to customers. Why wouldn’t you use interactive prototyping to make sure all of those features work as intended?
First impressions matter, so test prototypes before you release products
Interactive prototyping lets you experience a mock version of your product before you face user reviews. It gives you a chance to check every detail to make sure they work perfectly. Honestly, you will probably miss a few tiny details. Don’t worry; users will let you know about any flaws they find.
The prototyping phase is where you test your ideas in an environment that’s nearly identical to the real world. UXPin makes clickable prototypes easier to test by letting you add real data to your tool. For example, you can simulate a data-sorting feature by including the feature and adding real data to make sure it sorts the information correctly.
You don’t get the same level of scrutiny when you use fake data or Lorem ipsum. With nonsense data in your table, you can’t determine whether clicking commands gives you the desired result. Did names in the column get sorted alphabetically? Or did the prototype just rearrange the letters randomly?
The first round of feedback that you get from users will influence whether other people choose to download and install your product. If they encounter interactive features that don’t work correctly, they will warn others to stay away. At that point, updating your product might not matter much. Some users have already been influenced to go elsewhere.
Interactive prototyping will make it easier for you to catch the major issues that annoy early users. When your new release gets positive reviews, more people will install your product to experience it.
Save money with interactive prototyping
The cost of developing a website or app can vary wildly depending on its size, what features you want, and who you hire. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that software developers earn about $51.69 per hour. That assumes that you use full-time employees who also receive benefits, though. In reality, you will probably use some freelancers in addition to your core team of designers and developers.
When you hire an app developer in the U.S., you can expect to pay them about $121 per hour. You can save a lot of money by hiring developers from Eastern Europe, but there may be language, time, and geographic barriers. It’s hard to collaborate with someone who lives in a time zone that’s 6 to 9 hours ahead of you.
No matter which option you choose, you will spend a lot of money designing, developing, and testing your product. That doesn’t even include any marketing that you might use to reach new users.
An interactive prototyping tool that lets you create clickable prototypes that can save you a lot of time and money. Consider that graphic designers get paid about half as much as software developers. Letting your graphic designers create and test features in a virtual environment helps ensure that you spend as little as possible on costly developers.
Eventually, you will need someone who knows how to use the latest coding languages for apps. Until then, you can save money by relying on your graphic designers.
Clickable prototypes get more people involved in the design process
Collaboration between cross-functional teams has become a useful trend in app development. When you want to perfect a product, it makes sense to get feedback from as many people as possible. Clickable prototypes make it easy for everyone from the lead developer to the graphic design intern to play with the product before it gets finalized and put into marketplaces.
When teams can’t interact with prototypes, they can only assume that the features work. If there’s a “share” button in the corner, pressing it must share content via social media or email. Does the feature actually work? No one knows until after production. Clickable, interactive prototypes let you identify and solve potential problems now so you can streamline every step of the production process. With a static prototype, you might have to go back to make repeated updates.
Create clickable prototypes in UXPin
UXPin gives your team a simple way to create and test clickable prototypes. Interactive prototyping in UXPin doesn’t even require coding. When working in the UXPin canvas, you can add interactions with a few clicks of your mouse. During the prototyping stage, you get the same level of functionality.
UXPin’s real-time collaborative environment means that your team members can work on clickable features simultaneously. As long as you have a reliable internet connection, you can collaborate with UXPin as easily as you do in Google Docs.
Start your free trial with UXPin to create interactive prototypes
Want to see how interactive prototyping works in UXPin? Get started today by signing up for a free trial. You don’t have to provide your credit card information, so don’t worry about getting automatically charged. Once you see how simple interactive prototyping becomes with UXPin, though, you will want to create an account that gives you and your team access to every feature.
