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Product Management vocabulary · Discovery & User Research

Prototype

Meaning in product management, with examples

/ˈproʊtətaɪp/nounCore term

In product management, prototype means: An early, simplified model of a product or feature, from paper sketches to clickable designs, built to test an idea with users before real development.

In Turkish: prototip, ön model

How it is used

Designers usually build prototypes in tools like Figma; PMs use them in user tests and stakeholder reviews. Low-fidelity prototypes are rough and fast; high-fidelity ones look almost real. Also a verb: let's prototype two options.

Example sentences

  1. We tested a clickable prototype with six users before writing any code.

  2. The prototype showed that nobody understood the new icon.

Common collocations

  • clickable prototype
  • build a prototype
  • test a prototype
  • low-fidelity prototype
  • high-fidelity prototype
  • usability testingA research method in which real users try to complete tasks with a product or prototype while the team watches where they succeed, hesitate or fail.
  • MVPShort for minimum viable product: the simplest version of a product that can be released to real users to learn whether the idea is worth building further.
  • product discoveryThe work of finding out which problems are worth solving and which solutions will actually work, before the team commits to building them.
  • validateTo check with evidence, such as user tests, data or experiments, that an idea, assumption or solution is actually right before investing more in it.
  • iterateTo improve a product step by step by releasing a version, learning from users and data, and then changing it again in repeated cycles.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Discovery & User Research

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