By Teresa Torres · producttalk.org · @ttorres on X · LinkedIn
Teresa Torres argues that rapid prototyping is far broader than wireframes and usability testing. She offers a working definition of a prototype as something that simulates an experience, is built to answer a specific question, and is used to iterate. She then presents four uses: thinking, answering questions across desirability, usability, feasibility and viability, communicating, and making better decisions. The case matters because teams that treat prototyping narrowly leave much of its value unused, especially in early product decisions.
01Key takeaways
- Treat a prototype as a simulation built to answer one specific question, not as a generic mockup.
- Use prototypes to think by externalizing ideas, letting evaluation and design moves alternate.
- Prototype to test desirability, feasibility and viability, not only usability.
- Simulate just the part of the experience that answers your question, rather than the whole product.
- Prototype several ideas in parallel to avoid fixating on one and to ask which option looks most promising.
02Key sections
- Defining a prototype
- Torres reviews several definitions from design writers and finds each partial. She proposes that a prototype simulates an experience, targets a specific question, and supports iteration. A wooden block carried by Palm's founder illustrates a prototype that needs no multiple states.
- Prototyping helps you think
- Drawing on Lawson and Dorst, Torres explains that designers repeatedly move between making a design move and evaluating its consequences. Externalizing ideas through sketches and models reduces cognitive load and lets solutions evolve during the work.
- Prototyping helps you answer questions
- Torres maps prototyping onto four risk areas: desirability, usability, feasibility and viability. She notes that teams often over-simulate the whole experience when a narrow simulation targeting one question would give more value.
- Prototyping helps you communicate
- Prototypes can replace requirements documents and sell new ideas to stakeholders and customers. Simulating an experience, through techniques like Wizard of Oz and concierge tests, communicates more powerfully than showing or telling.
- Prototyping helps you make better decisions
- Torres warns that escalation of commitment makes teams fixate on a single idea. Parallel prototyping of multiple ideas turns a yes-or-no question into a comparison and keeps the team with something to build next.
03From the post
“When you hear the term “rapid prototyping,” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For most of us who work with digital products, we tend to think of wireframes or mockups. We equate prototyping with a quick way to get user feedback on our designs. But when we”
04Frameworks mentioned
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.