How to Design a Prototype: A Beginner’s Guide for SaaS Startups

Every project starts with an idea and vision of the outcome. But there is a long way to go from where you can only describe your product to having it ready to launch. And if you think that this gap is filled only with the development process, you are missing the necessary steps.

Prototyping is a pillar that keeps the whole software as a service (SaaS) creation procedure together. As tangible proof, it helps teams look at the raw idea from different angles, test hypotheses, apply amendments, and ensure the projects meet customers’ and business needs. And for startups, prototyping is critical as it saves time and money.

The process of creating a visual representation of the product encompasses different stages. And it is not only about making sketches. It covers researching user needs, planning the core functionality, developing prototypes, testing them, and making iterations.

This article will comprehensively explain why and how to design a prototype for your SaaS product for successful idea realization.

Understanding the Basics

To better understand what stands behind prototyping for SaaS startups, let’s delve into the fundamentals.

What Is a Prototype?

A prototype visualizes the product idea that exists statically and interactively depending on the fidelity type. It is a functional blueprint for future SaaS applications that allow developers and testers to experiment with its different components. This preliminary version of a product serves as a bridge between ideas and their realization and validation.

Prototyping has different types based on the accuracy:

• Low-fidelity prototypes. These are primitive drawings of the main application functions. With such simple sketches, designers show product functionality without diving deep into the aesthetics.

• High-fidelity prototypes. Hi-fi versions are more detailed and contain more elements. They can demonstrate simple interactions and reflect user interface appearance.

• Interactive prototypes. Resembling the final product version, interactive prototypes are clickable. They present the opportunity to fully interact with the platform and gain valuable insights after testing.

Why Prototyping Is Important for SaaS Startups

Creating a prototype for a startup project is more than just an optional process to tick off as “completed” in your list. It is a crucial step that developing companies should not neglect. And here is why:

• It validates ideas in the early development stages. With minimal resources involved, prototypes represent the idea and give startups a chance to test. This prevents companies from committing significant investments into underperforming concepts.
• It detects usability issues. SaaS startups can observe users’ challenges even before starting the development. Thus, by locating usability issues, teams can modify the design to meet user needs.
• It collects user feedback. A strong prototype lets you observe how end customers interact with your platform. It can give you a fresh point of view on how it operates in a real environment.
• It speeds up the development process. Developing a preliminary version of the product that team members and customers have validated makes it easier to create.
• It saves costs. Prototyping discovers different types of issues early in the development stage. So, by locating potential problems and fixing them as soon as possible, you save yourself from having to fix them at the final stages, which is more costly and time-consuming.

Defining Target Audience

How do you know what design you have to create if you don’t research the end customers’ needs, pains, and expectations? This is why, before designing prototype, it is essential to conduct user research.

Building User Personas

User personas are fictional characters that exemplify your real end customers. They are created based on user research, during which designers discover clients’ preferences, behavior, logic, goals, and other distinctive features.

The process of crafting a user persona requires to follow these steps:

1. Data gathering. This is when you interview real users and use analytical tools to define needed characteristics.
2. Audience segmentation. Having a lot of data, you can divide users into groups based on similarities, location, preferences, etc.
3. User persona validation. When you define people by attributes, you can present the main personas to other team members and stakeholders for approval.

Understanding User Needs

Researching user needs can be executed by applying different techniques. The most popular are user interviews, surveys, and observations.

During the interview, you can speak directly with the audience and identify their logic. Surveys help get quantitative data on user expectations and turn this information into valuable insights. Observations are applied to watch how customers think and use the product.

The outcome of finding user needs is not about gathering a lot of data. It is about pinpointing user pains and creating solutions.

Creating a Compelling User Story

Creating a design for startups is not enough just to identify how your end user will be. To fill the gap between personas and what they want to see in the app, designers craft user stories.

What Is a User Story?

A user story describes a particular feature or functionality made by a real user. In the prototyping process, it plays a pivotal role. A user story clarifies what the product should provide, fosters collaboration between teams and stakeholders, and ensures user-centered software. Users write their stories using this template: “As a [user role], I want to [goal], so that [reason]…” So, for instance, your user is a customer support specialist. The story will sound this way: “As a customer support representative, I want to track my tickets closed for a day to measure my results”.

How Do You Create One?

To build comprehensive and accurate user stories, involve developers, product managers, and stakeholders. Follow these tips when asking users to write their stories:

• Keep one functionality and story to one user.
• Be straightforward and avoid overwhelming technical language.
• Ensure you receive the correct outcome that can be further tested.

Choosing the Right Prototyping Tool

A proper prototyping tool helps you turn your ideas into interactive design solutions, foster collaboration, streamline the design processes, and enhance the collection of the user’s feedback.

Popular Prototyping Tools

This is a total breakdown of the popular tools with a thorough analysis of available advantages and disadvantages.

Figma

• Strengths. Great cloud-based development kit that offers real-time collaboration, convenient design capabilities, and the foster way to share feedback with your colleagues.

• Weaknesses. Unfortunately, Figma is known for its limited offline functionality and significant resource consumption.

Adobe XD

• Strengths. Convenient integration with other tools from the Adobe package. Adobe XD can surprise you with its intuitive interface, interactive features, and practical vector-based design tools.

• Weakness. In comparison with Figma, Adobe XD offers its users a reduced number of possible third-party integrations.

Sketch

• Strengths. The absolute industry standard for solutions designed specifically for the users of macOS. Sketch will be a highly customizable and user-friendly environment where you can find everything for convenient prototyping.

• Weakness. It’s the case when the best advantage becomes the only drawback since Sketch is only available on MacOS. It’s not available for users of other operational systems.

Invision

• Strengths. It is one of the best tools if you are looking for excellent collaboration and user testing tools in combination with the full suite of necessary prototyping tools.

• Weakness. Unfortunately, Ivision may be subject to freezes, especially when working with large files. It also has limited design capabilities in comparison with the previous workspaces.

Factors to Consider when Choosing Instruments

When selecting the proper prototyping tool, you must consider several key factors. Firstly, consider the user-friendly and easy-to-use programs so that your team can quickly adapt to the software and start the development.

Draw attention to the presence of collaboration tools to enhance your communication capabilities when working on a project in large squads.

Finally, choose the prototyping environments with accessible pricing rates that suit your financial expectations and cover the necessary technical requirements.

Designing Prototype

You can start designing prototypes when you prepare user research and choose the needed instruments.

Crafting Wireframes

Wireframes are the blueprint of the prototype. They show the basic structure of the platform and locate its main features, buttons, icons, and other elements. Their clear and simple nature is a foundation for further design development. To create clean and effective prototypes, put functionality first, use grids and guides, include only essential features, and implement feedback-based changes.

Designing User Interface

The user interface (UI) is that aspect of the application that connects users and your app functionality. By providing a well-designed UI, your customers will be able to navigate the platform easily, quickly locate needed features, and have an overall smooth experience.

These are the tips to follow when building a user interface: put the user in the center of the process, follow design principles, be consistent across all functionality, design with accessibility in mind, and take user feedback into account.

Adding Interactivity

Interactivity is that magical power that brings your basic sketches to life. By making your prototype interactive and clickable, you can detect and fix usability issues before the product reaches the audience.

Interactive design can be created with the help of the tools Figma, Adobe XD, InVision, and others. They allow adding clickable buttons, animations, links, and transitions.

A prototype with a well-crafted interactive design is a huge chance to get tons of user feedback, as they can explore your product from different angles.

Testing and Iteration

How do you validate your prototype ideas or send them for improvement? Right, only through testing.

User Testing

This type of testing allows designers to track how real users interact with the platform. It helps to discover potential issues in overall app performance. But what is more important is that it states whether users like your product or not.

Designers conduct user tests through different approaches:

• Moderated testing. This method refers to dictating specific tasks for users to complete.

• Unmoderated testing. During this design validation, users can research the platform as they desire.

• Remote testing. Testers apply remote testing when connecting with users around the globe.

• In-person testing. This approach requires face-to-face interaction with the end user, which helps to observe the actions thoroughly.

Feedback Gathering

Before you commit to user testing, follow these recommendations: set clear objectives of what you want to achieve, choose suitable tech-savvy users, always record sessions, build realistic cases, and don’t take an active part during testing to not influence the process.When you gather enough data, use tools like a spreadsheet and affinity diagrams to extract only valuable information.

Design Iteration

When you define the weak points of your prototype and growth areas, you should apply those insights for product improvement. The interactive design approach continues until you reach the best possible results. To include user feedback in your prototype, first fix critical issues, onboard every team member for iteration decision, create a strategy for amendments implementation, and retest the prototype again.

Conclusion

Prototyping for SaaS startups is a crucial step that connects the idea with the real product visual presentation. It covers user research, proper tool selection, designing, testing, and iteration.

But if you want professional help prototyping your future SaaS product or building it from scratch, contact us, and we will tailor the solutions to your case!