Build and make
AI product prototyper
Turning a half-formed idea into something working by Friday, so a real person can react to it instead of to a slide.
Written by Nivaan, founder of OffLadder ยท Last reviewed
Test it this week
Take an idea you have complained about and build a single working page or spreadsheet version of it this weekend. Show it to two people and write down the first thing each of them tried to do.
What the work actually contains
- Sitting in the room where the idea is argued about, then building the crudest version that tests it
- Putting it in front of five real users and watching where they hesitate
- Throwing most of it away and keeping the one part that worked
- Writing the honest note about what the prototype does not yet prove
Why it is appearing now
Building a rough working version has got dramatically cheaper, so the constraint has moved to deciding what is worth building and reading the reactions properly.
What AI changes about it
It is what makes the job possible for people who are not career engineers. It also floods teams with plausible prototypes, which raises the value of good taste and honest testing.
The human abilities it leans on
- Taste about what to leave out
- Reading people while they use something
- Being unattached to your own work
What it can grow out of
- Design, marketing, teaching, support, anywhere you have watched people misuse something
- Hobby building of any kind
- Junior engineering
What nobody knows yet
Whether teams keep a dedicated prototyper or expect it of everyone.
Guides worth reading