When to prototype, when to wireframe

From my experience I have come to the realization that interactive prototyping is not always the correct deliverable for a design project. Consider an enterprise application that needs a critical design fix because it is inefficient and is burning up money. The enterprise likely needs a solution as soon as possible, and it is probable that a well-designed GUI with traditional WIMP techniques and widgets will deliver big improvements. In such a scenario, the extra cost of creating an interactive prototype would unnecessarily expand the budget and delay the project when a simple, static wireframe would easily communicate the design to stakeholders and developers. In this fairly common scenario, interactive prototyping wastes resources.

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