Four ways to verify ideas before development

What are key steps of product development helping you to move from idea to actual product?  Before full-scale development you may need to test your ideas and possible features of a product. Testing will help you to avoid mistakes and not to lose your time and money if you try to implement an expensive function, but not sure whether there is a market demand for your product or technical feasibility.  Here are some preliminary steps in development to verify ideas, features, designs and use cases. They are different in details, serve various purposes, and one can’t replace the other. But in general all of them are aimed to reduce costs and risks in development. They are Research & Development (R&D), Proof of concept (POC), Prototype and Minimum viable product (MVP). Let’s take a closer look at each of them. R&D Key word: requirements R&D allows you to approve the idea, define possible issues, technical scope and find out the best solutions for product development. As a result you will have a clear vision of how to work on your project from the technical side. R&D propose deep analyses of hypotheses about products that allow answering these questions: is it possible to implement at all? Which resources and technologies one need to embody that idea? How much time does it take?  Our team is studying your requirements and assumptions. Based on this information we conduct a system analysis to see if your ideas can be brought to life, what resources are needed, which specialists, and how long it will take. The outcome of this work is collected in a special document that you can use for writing a technical specification for the development teams. POC Key word: feasibility POC is a theoretical draft or working model, which verifies that a particular concept or feature is viable, useful and technically feasible. POC is carried out prior to the full development in order to ensure that it’s worth investing resources in. It proves feasibility of a product idea or very principle of its work. Usually POC does not demonstrate to the public, rather inside the company to identify potential issues.  Our team will test feasibility of specific feature that you consider to be crucial for product development. Therefore, a proof of concept is not a finished product, but a small experimental project to confirm or refute the idea. The obtained results will be collected in a document, the information can be used for further development or significantly reworked in case the hypothesis fails the test. Prototype Key word: visualization Prototype is an interactive model with implementation of several features to demonstrate possible visual solutions. A prototype mostly shows design and user experience of the product. For the prototype phase these are more important than functionality. It also provides a way for development teams to trial different solutions, exploring how the product will look and function without any costly delays. The prototype can be modified and altered quickly, making changes and testing potential solutions easily within short timeframes. This solution fits perfectly to pitch your product to potential investors and make it more valuable, because it is a clickable model that imitates user scenarios and interface. Our team will create a model with a design, the emulation of functionality to visualize the product work. The prototype actually can be of different levels of elaboration, from a simple static image to a clickable interactive version, wireframe or sketch, depending on what is required and at which stage of the project. MVP   Key word: feedback  MVP is the first fully working version of a product to test the market, collect reviews from customers, and make the necessary modifications to improve a product. MVPs should include only the essential features and the simplest functionality enough to satisfy the needs of the targeted audience and get feedback from them.  Our team will create the first stable and error-free version of the product ready to launch to the market. MVP can be demoed to a limited group of users to get their first ratings and reviews. Based on their feedback, you can tweak and improve MVP as well as make decisions about what features to add or delete. You also see how much the market needs your product right now. If it is in demand, you can invest in its further development and scaling. If not, you will save money and time, since developing MVP is much cheaper than creating a product with all the functionalities and complex design. How to choose? Your choice mostly depends on which phase your product development stands and what task you need to solve right now. Let’s summarize. R&D is necessary if you are not ready to describe your project fully and need to identify the best available solutions. It gives you time to explore the problem and create requirements for development.   A POC is suitable to determine whether a product fits your demand. It is a small-scale trial or experiment to prove feasibility of a concept before committing resources to it.  A prototype allows you to test the design, function and performance. It is a visualization of your product solutions that helps to ensure on how the ideas can be implemented.  An MVP allows you to get feedback and decide whether to continue with further development. It is a first version of a product with the core essential features and functions to provide value to customers.  Whether you are looking to develop innovative products, create compelling MVPs, or enhance existing applications, Crypton Studio can help you when it comes to developing R&D, POC, Prototype, and MVPs. Our understanding of the latest trends, deep expertise and complete immersion in the development process let us produce original solutions for blockchain projects of any complexity. We work closely with customers to get their unique needs and develop a project strategy and scope that fits them.  Learn about our cases .  Do you have a project idea? Contact us to discuss details.