prototype

Pick the lowest fidelity that answers your current question: content-first for information needs, wireframe for layout and navigation, low-fi for task completion, high-fi for visuals and accessibility, and code for feasibility and performance. Never skip levels.

Define concrete tasks, measurable success criteria, and follow the 5-user rule, which surfaces most usability issues with five participants. The Skill provides a usability-testing script template to structure the session.

A journey map should include decision points, error paths, and edge cases such as empty, loading, and overflow states, not just the happy path. This ensures flows are validated against real-world failure conditions.

You should not skip levels under this workflow. Code-level prototypes are only appropriate when the question concerns technical feasibility or performance, after layout, task completion, and visual questions have been answered at lower fidelities.

High-fidelity and coded artifacts must use design tokens instead of hardcoded values, meet contrast requirements, and define all interactive states. They are held to the same token and accessibility bar as production design-code work.