I was reading an article on UX Matters the other day and came across an interesting statement that the fourth-generation prototyping tools are already well established but are yet to be adopted by the wide public. While it is not surprising to me that one would speak about generations of prototyping tools I started wondering what these generations were and when the transition from one generation to the other happened.
Prototyping tools have been around for a long time now. I previously wrote about the history of prototyping tools, which dates back to over twenty years. UX Matters suggested looking at four different criteria of prototyping tools in order to classify them into four generations. These criteria of prototyping tools were management, usability testing, design and specification. As an example of the first generation of prototyping tools UX Matters took paper prototyping and explained various properties of this prototyping tool with regard to the mentioned four criteria. On all four fronts paper prototyping is not a perfect prototyping tool: it is difficult from the management and usability testing perspective, design is limited to conceptual work, and specifications are possible only after the results are digitalized.
Slowly, as UX Matters demonstrated using various examples, prototyping tools became better at all four parameters until they reached the fourth generation of prototyping tools, which were created specifically for UI design as part of software development. The benefits of using the latest generation of prototyping tools are numerous and range from price to convenience and ease of use. An interesting observation that UX Matters makes is that the majority of companies still out of habit use second and third generation prototyping tools even when more advanced tools are available.
