Prototyping: A Practitioner's Guide

by Todd Zaki Warfel

Prototyping is a great way to communicate the intent of a design both clearly and effectively. Prototypes help you to flesh out design ideas, test assumptions, and gather real-time feedback from users. With this book, Todd Zaki Warfel shows how prototypes are more than just a design tool by demonstrating how they can help you market a product, gain internal buy-in, and test feasibility with your development team.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Usability, Web, Website Design, Business, Reference

195 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Nadya Tsech · Rating 4 out of 5]

“If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a prototype is worth 10,000. Prototypes go beyond the power of show and tell—they let you experience the design.”

The book is great: packed with tips and practical examples. Easy to read.

But...
I read this book in 2017 and it's quite outdated. The author spends way too many pages explaining why prototyping is important.

There is also a mostly useless part about prototyping tools, a lot has changed since 2009.

[Brendan Byrne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prototyping: A Practitioner's Guide reads like a book that was written by someone when asked by a friend to write a book, initially didn't want to, then was coaxed into it by ultimately deciding it would be good for their career, and then upon writing it discovered they didn't have enough content, so filled the rest of it with tutorials that wouldn't stand the test of time. Also, few attempts were made to ensure it would age well even 10 years down the road. And worst of all, what a glib book jacket.

Ouch! That's a harsh review, but let me temper it by saying that the good parts are good. The chapter on paper prototyping is downright delightful in my opinion. The opening chapters on the conceptual grounding of prototyping are strong, but are unfortunately dated. Most of the book is dated. For instance, sections on how to go about convincing your manager that prototyping is essential, or mix-ups with the development team, seem no longer as relevant. The tutorials section which composes a large portion of the book, are practically useless. The final section brings it back though, with some great practical information on how to conduct tests and interviews.

All the while reading this book, I doubted everything I was learning. Is this how it's done now or is this how it was done in 2009? The thought of a UX designer favoring PowerPoint over a programming environment is difficult to imagine these days. The book is a time capsule for a period where UX was just starting to get its footing and graphic designers were beginning to learn that programming was an essential skill.

[Tatsiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Начало, теоретическая часть не очень вдохновили. Какая-то сырая классификация видов/моделей прототипов. Возможно, дело в русском переводе.
А вот потом книга подарила мне понимание, что я- то могу прототипиррвать интерфейсы на html! И на бумагу и power point я не смотрела с этой точки зрения. Это было интересным инсайтом! И полезным на будущее.

[Erin]

In this review, I'm going to talk first about the book itself and then give some comments that apply (so far) to all books published by Rosenfeld.

I am not going to give this book a rating because the rating varies between the audience. Beginning Prototypers: 5 stars. Experienced Prototypers: 3-ish stars. Personally, I like the book, find it useful, and certain parts of this book will be useful for future reference.

Prototyping: A Practitioner's Guide can be thought of in two main parts. First, Chapters 1-4 (inclusive) discuss some background on prototyping, general considerations, basically things to think about and know about prototyping in general. Chapters 5-11 discuss specific tools used to develop prototypes, and a very basic how to use those tools to develop prototypes. Finally, Chapter 12 discusses testing the prototype.

People new to prototyping will probably find the most value in this book. People who are seasoned practitioners in prototyping will probably find the first half useful (theory and practices), but not so much the second half (tools).

Each chapter on tools gives a quick "score card" (quick view of strength and weaknesses at a glance), discusses some strengths of the tool as well as some weaknesses. Additionally, a quick and simple step-by-step how to make a prototype for each tool is given.

One tool I find to be conspicuously absent is Adobe Flash. The author states that he chose not to discuss Flash because there are already a multitude of books dedicated to Flash. While I agree Flash is extremely well documented and there are many books on the topic, I think that Flash's popularity as a prototyping tool warrants at least a short chapter and discussion on using Flash specifically to prototype designs.

Reading books published by Rosenfeld is a very pleasant experience (I love Rosenfeld Media, they are my favorite publisher due to my user experience with their ebooks). The books are published in both ebook form and paper book form. The ebook, a pdf, was obviously designed to be read as an ebook. The font is large, clear, and easy to read on a variety of screen sizes. There are links within to book to relevant places online (e.g. All images link to a high-quality, CC licensed version on Flickr). These are truly the best laid out and thought out ebooks I have seen to date. Hopefully Rosenfeld starts a trend. The hard copy versions are printed on high-quality paper and are small enough to fit in a medium sized purse/bag.

All Rosenfeld books (that I've read) begin with how to use the book and frequently asked questions. The first chapter focuses on why you should employ a method (in this case prototyping) and why it's important--in addition to being informative, this first chapter seems to give the reader an arsenal for communicating with decision makers who might appreciate a solid rationale to spend time and money on whatever the topic of the book is.

Note: this is cross-posted on amazon

[Laurian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book would have been a great read for me about 10 years ago when I was a blossoming noob of UX. I think if you are unfamiliar with the tools out there this does a great job of detailing and showing the pros and cons of each choice. I did learn one or two things in the paper prototyping section that I'd never seen before that made it worth the read. All in all I'm glad to have it around to point to while also being able to reference it.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was OK. The first half was decent - why to prototype and how to adapt your workflow to prototyping. The second half book is devoted to step-by-step tool talk on Visio, PowerPoint, Axure, etc. Yawnful stuff for those of us who've been around a while, and evaluated and used the tools as part of our daily work.

[Dave Emmett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lot of great stuff in here for new UX-ers like myself. I found the how-to chapters on specific tools (Fireworks, Visio, etc.) less helpful than the 'why' chapters, and the chapter on testing. But the 'how' chapters will probably the ones I refer back to when I'm building prototypes, so I guess it's a trade-off.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good quick overview with a lot of practical helps from an experienced practitioner. I wasn't as interested in the chapters on specific technologies (except paper of course) so I skipped those. Not a lot of depth, which was just right for my purposes: i was looking for a quick start, and this fit the bill.

[Fritz Desir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prototyping matters and as things get faster (ahem Agile) that will only increase. Reading this book helped the learning curve on what to do and more importantly what NOT to do!

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super useful, slim volume. Looking forward to an update about the latest tools.

[Alexander Debkaliuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're still not prototyping interfaces, this book will provide a number of good reasons why you should. For those in the know it might be of less interest.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's okay... moderately interesting topics, clear writing, and a balanced discussion on prototyping.
A very quick read for me.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good introductory/overview book. Not well suited for seasoned folks.

[Abbas Vahedi]

البته نسخه فارسی رو خوندم

[Vanessa.l · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for junior designer who even not know how to draw prototype,not for the senior.