What is a best practice for maintaining low-to-mid-fidelity in early rapid prototyping?

Focusing on quick feedback and avoiding high-fidelity designs is a best practice in early rapid prototyping for several reasons. Early stages of design emphasize exploring various ideas and concepts quickly, and this is best achieved with low-to-mid-fidelity prototypes. Maintaining lower fidelity allows designers and stakeholders to focus on functionality, layout, and concept without getting bogged down in details or aesthetics that high-fidelity designs typically entail.

When prototypes are high-fidelity, feedback can become overly focused on the visual design elements rather than the usability, interaction, or overall experience. This can lead to distractions and possibly skew the feedback away from important usability insights that are more critical in the concept validation phase.

Therefore, by keeping prototypes low-to-mid-fidelity, designers encourage constructive feedback on the core interaction and functionality aspects, enabling rapid iterations based on user insights. This process supports a more agile and effective design approach, ultimately leading to a better-finalized product that is grounded in user needs and behaviors.