# Prototype: Fidelity & Making Tangible

**Track:** Design Thinking & Process — Design & Human-Centered Design — proposed (25)
**Framework / surface:** design
**Level:** Intermediate
**Prerequisites:** Ideate: Divergent Thinking

**In one line:** Make ideas tangible cheaply — paper to interactive — to learn fast.

## Theory, aesthetics & inspiration

A prototype is an argument made tangible: not a small version of the final thing but a question asked in material. Fidelity is therefore a deliberate choice, not a measure of progress — Carolyn Snyder's "Paper Prototyping" (2003) shows that hand-sketched screens can answer interaction questions a polished mockup would only delay. Rapid, throwaway prototyping trades finish for speed, embodying IDEO's maxim to "fail often to succeed sooner": build the cheapest artifact that resolves your uncertainty, then discard it. The principle is to match fidelity to the question — low to explore, high to validate. Today Figma's interactive prototyping collapses that spectrum into one continuous tool.

## References

- [Paper prototyping — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_prototyping)
- [UX Prototypes: Low Fidelity vs. High Fidelity — Nielsen Norman Group](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-prototype-hi-lo-fidelity/)
- [What is a Prototype? — Interaction Design Foundation](https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/prototyping)