From Structure to Simulation - Creating an Interactive Prototype

This article is part of an ongoing series where I share a complete walkthrough of how to create a digital product from scratch. If you're just joining, I recommend starting with the first post: The First Steps in Creating a Digital Product to understand the context and follow along smoothly.

Designing an interactive prototype is one of the most powerful steps in aligning everyone involved in product development — from designers to engineers to stakeholders. It gives clarity about the user experience, reduces communication gaps, and helps detect issues early, ultimately saving time and resources.

But prototyping isn’t just about jumping into a design tool and drawing screens. Before you start connecting buttons and creating mock flows, there are important steps that ensure you’re solving the right problems the right way. The first of them: Information Architecture.

Information Architecture

Based on the functional requirements, the user journey, and personas from previous articles, we start by structuring and organizing information within the system by answering:

What screens will exist?
How are they connected?
What content and actions live in each?
How does the user navigate between them?

Then, we list all expected elements:

Functionalities (e.g., login, search, checkout)
Content types (e.g., dashboard, profiles, help pages)
User actions (e.g., buy, save, share)

Next, we group features and content by purpose:

Core experience (e.g., feed, transactions, gameplay)
Settings (e.g., profile, security)
Support (e.g., FAQ, legal)

We map how the user reaches each functionality. Example:

User → Home → Explore Dapps → Select Dapp → Connect Wallet

Then, we sketch a simple Sitemap:

Home
├── Explore
│   ├── Dapp Details
│   └── Categories
├── Wallet
│   ├── Balance
│   └── Transactions
└── Profile
    ├── Preferences
    └── Security

This map should then be validated with product and tech teams to ensure:

All necessary paths are covered
There’s no duplication or unnecessary screens
Navigation reflects how users actually think

Wireframes

Now it’s time to visualize it all. Wireframes are quick, low-fidelity sketches of key screens — no colors, fancy styles, or branding. The goal here is clarity, not beauty.

Use pre-built UI elements (like forms, buttons, cards) to accelerate the process. This is also where you start collecting feedback again from the team and stakeholders. Wireframes help people focus on layout and structure without getting distracted by visual polish.

Visual Design

Once your wireframes are validated, it’s time to bring them closer to reality — but only once you’ve decided on the visual identity of the product.

For MVPs, I always recommend keeping the design simple, clean, and slightly generic, with a touch of personality. Why? Because the market will tell you what works — and we don’t want to over-invest before we know what resonates.

Start by defining:

A logo and primary color (based on your personas)
A typography set and icon style that reflects your audience’s expectations

To move fast, use an existing Design System or at least a minimalist UI Kit. Present the visual direction clearly to your team and ensure it aligns with your product’s current stage and goals.

This foundation will serve as your building blocks for the UI.

Atomic Design in Practice

With your UI kit ready, start building the interface using the Atomic Design methodology:

Atoms: Inputs, checkboxes, buttons, links, icons, text styles
Molecules: Forms, navigation bars, dropdowns, cards, modals
Organisms: Headers, footers, side menus
Templates: Standard page layouts (e.g., dashboard, list views)
Pages: Assembled screens showing real user flows

🎯 Pay special attention to cards, especially when displaying different entities like users, posts, or products. It’s common to have different sizes and levels of detail depending on context. Responsive cards can help — but only build what's truly needed to avoid unnecessary work.

🧪 Start with the main screens in the user journey and gather feedback early and often — this will give you more confidence to move forward and help prevent costly rework later.

Interactive Prototyping

Using a tool like Figma, we now link screens and simulate a real user experience. Connect buttons, simulate flows, and add elements like:

Error messages
Loading states
Hover effects and animations — only if they help clarify how the application works. Otherwise, these details can be refined during development.

Then — feedback time again. Walk stakeholders and team members through the prototype. This version should be as close as possible to the final product experience. It will guide the development phase, so it’s worth getting right.

Conclusion

And there you have it — an interactive prototype that will serve as a solid guide for building your product. But for it to translate into code, we’ll need a technical specification, feature breakdown, and task roadmap — which I’ll cover in the next article.

If you're building a product or just interested in improving your process, feel free to connect or message me. I'm always open to sharing ideas and learning from other builders.

Written by Gil, a fullstack developer with 15+ years of experience, passionate about practical architecture, clean UX, and blockchain-powered applications.