Prototypes are often used to examine how users will behave with the product, reveal new solutions to problems, or determine whether the implemented solutions have been successful.

When designers want to understand how users will interact with a product, the most obvious method is to test how the users interact with the product. Producing a finished product for the users to test would be pointless. Instead, designers provide simple, earlier versions of their products, known as prototypes, which can then be used to observe, record, judge, and measure user performance levels, their general behavior, interactions, and reactions to the overall design.