What are the disadvantages and advantages of prototyping over system development life cycle?

Answer 1

Basically speaking, there are five advantages that prtotyping could bring about.

1) Provides functionality and interactions. Static high-fidelity mockup and wireframe are unable to convey animation. But a prototyping with interaction can do it pretty well.

2) Make actual communication with your boss, stockholders and users. The communication is necessary, the more they understand your design, the bigger the chance you can buy them in.

3) Detect errors earlier and save time and money. Trust me, any mistakes cost you less in prototyping stage than to be found in the later development stage.

4) Enhance collaboration within your team members internal. It can improve efficiency largely.

5) Involve user feedback and help to do multiple-test. It’s a key factor to iterate and update.

So, it's necessary to make prototypes before you develop actual products or websites. When it comes to prototyping, I would like to share one tool with you: Mockplus Cloud.

Mockplus Cloud - Connect your entire product design workflow.

As a brand-new collaboration tool for designers and developers, it goes far beyond design and workflow—allowing mobile designers to create masterpieces. It allows you to upload your wireframes and visual designs from Photoshop, AdobeXD, and Sketch, and add them to your project folder.

A full set of features about prototyping, commenting, collaborating and design handoff enable you to create a product from the start to finish.

Hopefully, this helps.

Answer 2

In a strict sense, prototyping involves creating the system with a subset of requirements/functionality, and refining it over time as requirements become more clear. An advantage is that users get to actually use the system and give you real feedback. Disadvantage is that you may end-up with a mess of spaghetti code, and there is a good chance your documentation will not evolve together with the system, as you are dealing with in-production emergencies... Prototyping can actually be a part of the traditional development cycle, but in that case it is something you create quickly as a proof of concept with a full intention to throw it away once the requirements are clear.

Answer 3

The advantages are quick and dirty to see some results, without spending time on design and analysis, proper documentations and testing. Prototype also helps to evolve the software. For example, communicating to an external service component is the goal of the prototype, yet during the unit testing (yes, still need to test), some different exceptions occurred. These exceptions are now a part of the system specifications (but the business requirement may not state them at all)

In programming, prototyping is to write code to experiment 1 or 2 aspects of the future system to be built. These experiments may not be in the final solutions! The code maybe sloppy, do not have the full blown exception handling, and may even with hard-coded values. (for example, to prototype the calculation of 1 + 1, one may code with hard-coded 2 as the only result!) Prototype should be quickly implemented and maybe without any design or analysis. Most of time, prototypes are throw-away codes, even the feature is needed, the code should be rewritten in quality.

Answer 4

Rapid prototyping is a process where a working model or prototype is developed for the purpose of testing the various product features like design, ideas, features, functionality, performance and output. This process of development of working model is quite quick.

Rapid prototyping has manifold advantages.

1. The prototype gives the user a fair idea about the final look of the product.

2. Rapid prototyping can enhance the early visibility. It is easier to find the design flaws in the early developmental stages.

3. Active participation among the users and producer is encouraged by rapid prototyping.

4. As the development costs are reduced, rapid prototyping proves to be cost effective. The user can get a higher output.

5. Rapid prototyping enables development time and costs. There are many innovative ways in which rapid prototyping can be used.

Disadvantages of Rapid Prototyping:

1. Some people are of the opinion that rapid prototyping is not effective because, in actual, it fails in replication of the real product or system.

2. It could so happen that some important developmental steps could be omitted to get a quick and cheap working model.

3. One in which many problems are overlooked resulting in endless rectifications and revisions.

4. It may not be suitable for large sized applications.

I am a user of rapid prototyping service of Iannone3D, which is a New Jersey based Rapid Prototyping and 3D Printing Service Bureau. Before I have no idea but after doing this I got idea.