Clickable Prototype vs Interactive Demo

• Prototype: deciding what to build, testing a flow before writing it, getting a team to agree on a design.
• Demo: showing a real product to someone who has not signed up, training a user, answering a support question, sending into a deal.
• Prototype: fast to change, because nothing depends on it.
• Demo: accurate by construction, because it was recorded from the thing itself.

Showing a prototype to a buyer as though it were shipped software. It works, right up until they sign up and find the screens do not exist — and the disappointment lands after money has changed hands.

The reverse mistake is merely wasteful: using a recorded demo for design research, where it cannot answer "would they find this" because the path is fixed.

Prototypes have tells: placeholder names, perfectly round numbers, empty states that are suspiciously tidy, and flows with no error case anywhere.

Experienced buyers spot these quickly, so the deception rarely even works — which makes it a risk taken for very little return.

Concept testing with people who know it is a concept. A prototype or a clearly-labelled demo both work, and the label is what makes it honest rather than the format.

The test is simple: would this person be surprised, at any later point, to learn it was not built? If yes, the framing is wrong regardless of which tool produced it.

• What Is a Clickable Demo?
• Can You Validate an Idea With an Interactive Demo?
• Interactive Demos for UX Researchers