Meta Achieves High-Fidelity Prototyping at Scale with ProtoPie

Global tech leader Meta consistently pushes the boundaries of innovation. Designing and validating user experiences for their cutting-edge products and complex interactive systems requires a prototyping solution that is both powerful and agile.

The Challenge: Prototyping in a Complex, Fast-Paced Environment

Across its diverse teams, including Reality Labs (RL), Industrial Design (ID), and infrastructure groups, Meta needed to:

• Create highly realistic, interactive prototypes that go far beyond static screens.
• Enable rapid iteration and gather actionable user feedback quickly.
• Test complex interactions, including those involving native device sensors or data from multiple sources.
• Bridge the gap effectively between design and engineering to streamline the development process.

The Solution: ProtoPie for Advanced, Integrated Prototyping

Meta utilizes ProtoPie to empower its designers to build and test high-fidelity prototypes quickly and without requiring in-depth coding knowledge.

For teams working on complex systems, including those involving hardware or backend integration, ProtoPie Connect and the API plugin are key. Ryan Olson, a Product Design Engineer at Meta, describes the API plugin as "gold" and "huge", allowing prototypes to seamlessly communicate with hardware or custom backend services (e.g., via JSON). This is crucial for simulating real-world product behaviors.

Key Features & Outcomes for Meta:

Faster Innovation: ProtoPie helps Meta "try a lot of things quickly," speeding up design validation across projects.

Native Device Capabilities for Authentic User Testing: Test on real devices with native sensors for genuine user insights.

API Plugins empower Designers: An intuitive model (Object, Trigger, Response) allows designers to tackle complex UX for software and hardware-integrated products.

Cloud Sharing leads to faster Stakeholder Buy-in: Effectively communicate complex designs for faster alignment, with ProtoPie Cloud enabling easy sharing.

Smoother Developer Handoff simplifies Communication: Designers "show developers what [they] want," reducing ambiguity and easing implementation.

Key Takeaways

These are just some of the achievements Meta has realized in the short time since using ProtoPie for their high-fidelity prototyping. Continuous development and feature expansion of ProtoPie’s solution will extend the benefits that any design and product team can expect when joining ProtoPie.

Learn how ProtoPie can help your team innovate faster and transform your Complex Product Design with ProtoPie.