Test your digital designs early & often !
In the world of business, it is often said that the company that frequently pivots often finds the most success. Case in point, Twitter was originally a podcasting platform, we all know how that went. Instagram, Airbnb even YouTube, all these huge companies originally started with no relation to the service they provide now.
All these companies built something and iterated their solutions based on direct feedback from the marketplace. After taking the time and catering to their users’ needs, each one of them adapted to their situation and made business decisions that provided tons of value later down the line.
In the world of design, this mentality of pivoting, iterating, and testing new ideas is no different. In order to be a great designer in the world of tech, you need to incorporate all stages of design thinking. In this article, I plan to share with you my experience of incorporating design thinking principles and focus on the testing stage (often the most forgotten stage) and show how a simple mindset can push you in the right direction.
Design thinking, what is it?
Design thinking is all the rage right now. It's not just designers that incorporate this way of thinking into their work. Schools have used it to better their education system, businesses have incorporated it into their processes to increase t revenue and product companies have taken advantage of it to help them build better products.
But what is design thinking? In short it is a process for problem solving by identifying the user's needs, trying several ideas and getting feedback from real users.
There are 5 stages to design thinking:
- Empathizing - The designer observes the user and how they interact with the problem.
- Defining - The designer tries to understand and define the pain points.
- Ideating - The designer comes up with numerous ideas to see what the best solution is
- Prototyping - The designer makes the ideas tangible.
- Testing - The designer tests the prototype with real users and observes their interaction with the prototype.
This is a cyclical process that can go through several rounds until the designer feels like they've come up with the right solution. What's important is that the designer goes through each stage at least once to validate the initial idea.
Testing: the forgotten stage
As designers we naturally do this process of design thinking without realizing it, but what I've often seen in my line of work is the 'Testing' stage often being neglected or forgotten completely.
I've seen time and again, designers not testing their prototypes with real users. Maybe because of time restraints, not enough funding, or lack of skills, but the testing stage is just as important as everything else. How else do we validate our ideas? If we're not getting feedback, how can we improve and iterate on the solution? Are we just going to make assumptions until the product launch date?
Testing your designs is just as important, if not, one of the most important stages that shouldn't be overlooked.
Implementing the testing stage with a client
I myself nearly fell into the trap of neglecting the testing phase.
Working with a big client, we needed to figure out the order & returns flow for the E-commerce site that we were working on. We were trying to improve on the user experience yet still cater to the client's logistical needs.
It was a complicated flow. From logistics to finance, there were many moving parts that were needed to just initiate a return, don't get me started on what was needed for fulfilling the rest of the process.
Sitting alongside stakeholders, designers as well as developers we had spent weeks understanding the requirements, coming up with ideas and iterating the design. We were constantly going back and forth trying to figure out which was the best solution. It was then that I realized that we were missing one important aspect.
Testing our ideas.
We had been so focused on designing the solution that we never even asked the user their thoughts on the matter. We were so focused on the business requirements that we forget to cater to the user’s needs as well. Up until then, all we had been doing was assume that the user would have a pleasant experience with our current design solution.
I put on the breaks and told the client that we needed to test this flow with real users to help us validate our ideas. Sometimes, we as designers can be so focused on the detail that we naturally miss things. Perhaps, from testing our ideas we'd have concrete feedback that could steer the design towards a better direction.
The client agreed and we went away and set up the testing environment. Since we were dealing with a major client, we created high-fidelity prototypes to give the impression that the user was dealing with a live website. It took some time to set up, but the results were well worth it.
Getting validation
Thankfully, in our testing scenario the users were able to understand the flow. We had a few hiccups along the way, but it only highlighted that we needed to iterate a few designs on our end. Out of that meeting we had a few actionable tasks to help improve the solution. If we had implemented this way of thinking early on during this project, we would have saved weeks of useless iterations.
Testing doesn't need to be complex
Testing your prototype doesn't need to be so complicated. You don't need to always have a high-fidelity prototype ready for you to test. Even testing a wireframe drawn on a piece of tissue would be enough to validate an idea.
In our situation and the client we were working with, the tools we used were Figma - to help us create the high-fidelity prototype and flows - as well as Maze to help us set up the testing ground and capture useful analytics with how the user interacted with the prototype. With just those two programs we were able to set up a remote testing environment that provided us with tons of insights that we were able to act on.
Test Often
My hope is that I've shed some light on the importance of testing your ideas. We designer aren't just making things look pretty, we are creatively solving problems. Therefore, a process like design thinking is a great approach for ensuring the success of your digital designs.
What is important is that you get your ideas tested with real users and that you do it early and often. There's so much value with getting direct feedback from real users. It can save you hours, money and perhaps tell you when it's time to move on from that idea and pivot.