Once you are far enough along in a project, you can start to put together high fidelity prototypes to gain certain types of feedback you couldn’t get otherwise with a low-fidelity prototype.
If you are trying to test a feature of an app that needs some instructions, you need a high enough fidelity prototype to start the testing. Suppose you are trying to figure out where to put the close button or where the role overs change color. Naturally, your prototypes are higher and higher fidelity as you approach the end of a project.
Actuar is a great tool for creating high fidelity prototypes like pages of an app that are clickable or navigation tools. Once you get to a point where you don’t need to test anything or need sign-offs, you no longer need to create prototypes.
A high fidelity prototype should be indiscernible from the final project. This means you may be developing and prototyping at the same time. Dev offers staging and developing section in their program so you can prototype certain features in its staging section while also having the web development of the site remain unaffected by the staging section. This allows a client to click around in the staging environment to see what they like about a website but many times the mockups just end up being the final project.
Basically, you are creating the final project to the point where the prototype becomes the end product. WordPress developers often build websites for clients and send screenshots of how it looks so you can send approval on their ideas. The site may be fully functional and ready to be launched, but they may avoid telling you this, so you aren’t hung up on the details on the site once again running down the path clients getting stuck on minor details.