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Comment by thatthatis | Hacker News Reader

Mockup.

This guy is talking about building mockups, and only mockups.

A prototype is a working version of all key features that can be used as if it were the final product albeit in a somewhat limited fashion (E.g. the edges aren't rounded)

A mockup demonstrates the value in a non-working fashion so people can respond to the general idea.

If you don't get mockup vs prototype right, it's pretty hard for me to value your opinion on these matters.

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This post is talking about prototypes from a usability perspective, not a technical perspective. A prototype by your definition ( a "real" prototype) would use data and be built in about the same way as the final product would be. I'm talking about how to prototype the experience. I see how it's easy for you to misunderstand me - apologies for not being clear.

Then it would be helpful if you qualify prototype as "ux prototype" or "interaction prototype". Paper prototypes, which this is fairly similar to, is a term that is lexically unambiguous. Without the qualification the title becomes confusing. I initially thought you were claiming to have a methodology to get a "real" non trivial prototype in a few hours.

That's not how its used in UX design. A mockup is essentially a screenshot: non-interactive, visually accurate. A prototype is an interactive simulation of the system. The term encompasses simulations which are very far from the final product, like creating interfaces using hand-drawn pieces of paper and sticky notes which are operated by a human acting as the system.

I find that it's helpful to evaluate ideas on their merits instead of quibbling over terminology.

If we go by intent: a mockup is used to get project buy-in and early feedback from stakeholders; design is still at the planning stage. A prototype is an abstraction of the system used to validate interaction features during design.

Getting terminology right is important from "does X solve problem Z, and are X and Y the same thing when it comes to solving problem Z."

Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken[chicken], chicken chicken chicken (chicken chicken chicken chicken).

Chicken: http://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf

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