Prototype Development
Our start-up expert will meet with you in person to discuss your idea and to work as one of your internal team members. We understand that a new product will continue to evolve, even during the MVP stage. Our presence as a team member will help you understand the changes better, and we can subsequently relay it back to our development office.
The Prototype to Define Patents
Entrepreneurs need a solid understanding of what they’re trying to do before they go to file a patent. Going through the process of building and understanding a prototype can help them write stronger patents because they’ll be able to state exactly how and why their product works.
The product specification and definition phases set the stage for formal patent applications. Prototype development can also define new opportunities to broaden the patent suite. With prototypes, entrepreneurs may be able to envision future changes or additions and get claims on those as well.
As the design process advances, each version of the prototype will be more refined and expensive, and changes will become subtler. This is the point at which most startups take their prototypes on the road to share them with investors. Passion is a positive, but investors are more swayed by preparedness. Part of being prepared is having the wherewithal and foresight to have developed compelling prototypes!
Successful entrepreneurs know the power of sending prototypes on tour to get investors engaged in the product concept. People’s attitudes about a product change when they take it into their hands and use it. If investors need to rely on their imaginations to understand a product, they’re not going to get nearly as excited.
Process of development
Meetings and Brainstorming
As soon as we sign an NDA, we are ready to exchange an ocean of information in order to understand the product, its market, and the target audience. The process also involves collecting user-stories and their interactions with the application. The features identified within the product will then be prioritized in order of importance.
Wireframing Begins
This is a very important step towards UI design and the planning of user interaction scenarios. It captures page flows, outlines of the user interface, form fields, and additional UI details. Wireframes are reviewed based on user stories and redone many times in order to achieve the best possible user experience.
UI Design
At this stage, we are ready to convert the wireframes into real designs. The designs may be reworked multiple times to improve the details. UI design in our team is done using Photoshop / Fireworks. Layered design files are also available from the iDesignproject team.
Front-end Development
After the UI design, we are ready to divide the mock-ups into working HTML5-CSS3 pages. All front-end development related to various UI interactions are also done in this phase. At this point, the application can be navigated through all pages without back-end functions. We also call it the static prototype.
Back-end Development
The database design is carefully planned and executed so that it is adaptable for high traffic and concurrency. Finally, the back-end code is written in PHP, Ruby-on-Rails, or Django. Back-end development also involves writing related to AJAX, Backbone, and Angular JS. The integration of the application with different web services, social media, and third-party applications is done using their respective APIs.
MVP Launch
We launch the application in a beta version to get reviews and feedback from a limited pool of actual users. Based on the feedback, a list of improvements is prepared. If the list includes major changes, we repeat the design and development steps. If there are only minor changes, it is done on the fly.
