Summary

Requirements prototypes are simulation models designed to help you learn more about the stakeholders' requirements. The aim of a prototype is to make it easier for people to imagine what it might be like to use the real product to do work. Ideally, working with this model will stimulate them into remembering requirements they have forgotten, or thinking of ideas that might not otherwise occur to them until they begin using the real product.

Low-Fidelity prototypes offer a quick way to put together a mockup of a product using familiar technology such as pencil and paper, whiteboards, flip charts, and so on. These prototypes encourage stakeholders to focus on what the product does, rather than how it will appear. They help to discover missing functionality and to test the scope of the product.

high-fidelity prototypes use software tools and give a strong appearance of reality. Their advantage is obvious: It takes little imagination to see the prototype as a working system. We suggest that you adopt prototypes of both kinds as a regular part of your requirements process.