Testing Techniques for Rich User Feedback
Questions to Frame Testing
When testing concepts with participants there are a number of questions that should guide your investigation.
• How well do our assumptions match reality? • What needs are we solving for? • Which concepts or frameworks best describe the need? • Which concepts or frameworks suggest solutions?
Work with your team to help define the goals of research. In building the stimulus and prototypes to facilitate that work, we've found the following guidelines useful (though certainly not exhaustive):
Embrace Failure
Not everything will resonate with participants. Some things will fail outright. Expect failure. This is still good data. Not every concept, lever or analog will make it to testing but it is useful to keep those things hanging around so that you can use them to probe on why something failed.
Iterate
Keep tweaking. Be prepared to kill your babies. Be on the lookout for what can be made clearer. What needs to be removed? What needs to be added? What needs to be adjusted?
Shoot for the sweet spots
Strive for the right level of fidelity. A complete flow may be distracting while focusing on just a few key touchpoints may get to the heart of something with greater clarity.
In service of innovation we often try to make things drastically different, but there is a risk of losing your user in the process. Participants should be able to relate to concepts. The insights gleaned from down-to-earth conversations are still applicable to the big ideas.
Conversations are more valuable than binary responses. "Yeah, I like it" is not useful. It can be useful to present something that is intentionally imperfect or open-ended in order to elicit a richer response. Gaining insight is more important than validating an idea.
Listen to your Client
Collaborate with your client to understand the need behind a request to test a feature or use case. While the intention behind a request may at first seem unclear or separate from the scope of research, your client knows their business better than you. Help them draw a line to the features and scenarios that best meet your shared understanding of their needs.