Design & Product
Learn how to refine design ideas, iterate your prototypes, and create exceptional user experiences through prototype testing. Discover practical tips, real-world case studies, and expert insights to optimize your design workflow
UX Design Thought Leader
You’ve finished your prototype, and handed it over to the product team. Now they ask the inevitable questions: “How confident are you in your solution? Are we ready to build?”. How does that make you feel?
For many designers, these questions bring both excitement and apprehension. A prototype reflects hours of work and creativity, but saying “yes” means you’re confident it will work, meet user needs, and align with goals — even though it’s not the final product.
So, how do you gain confidence during the prototyping stage? How do you turn an idea into a prototype you are proud of?
In this guide, we’ll explore prototype testing and how to do it—so let’s dive right in!
Prototype testing is the process of evaluating early versions of a product or service by presenting them to real users to gather feedback. This approach helps you observe, learn, and refine, complementing your product vision with solid data.
By iterating on user insights, you ensure that when you say, ‘Yes, we’re ready,’ it’s backed by solid evidence and user-driven validation.
Testing allows you to move from feeling confident to being confident. Let’s delve into why prototype testing is essential:
Forrester‘s research shows that every $1 invested in UX can yield $100 in return. Early testing reduces development time and costs by validating concepts and identifying usability issues, resulting in happier users and fewer complaints.
While working at PebbleRoad, I had the opportunity to lead a team in redesigning a complex government website. Our goal was to create a more user-friendly and efficient digital experience.
To achieve our goal, we prioritized user experience by conducting thorough user research and testing before and after the redesign. As a result, we identified key challenges and validated our design decisions.
The outcome? By iterating our designs with user feedback, we enhanced the website’s usability and accessibility significantly. This resulted in a substantial reduction in contact volume and increased user satisfaction.
Many products fail due to poor user-centric design. This issue can be avoided by integrating testing into product discovery and continuous improvement.
By doing so, we can ensure our products effectively address the right problem, saving time and resources in the long run.
Let’s explore the best times to test your design.
Through rigorous testing, we can validate ideas, make data-driven design improvements, and enhance usability, resulting in a user-centric product that meets user needs.
Testing is an ongoing process that requires multiple iterations for optimal results. We understand that any type of testing demands both time and effort.
In the next section, we’ll explore how to choose the best methods for your team and goals.
Moderated testing and unmoderated testing are valuable tools for gathering user feedback and insights. However, they each have unique strengths and weaknesses.
Moderated testing is typically conducted by a researcher who guides participants through tasks and observes their behavior in real time.
ProsUnmoderated testing is a type of prototype testing where participants complete tasks and answer questions independently, without a researcher present.
Pros:We often combine both qualitative and quantitative methods. This mixed-method approach provides a comprehensive understanding of user behavior and can lead to more informed design decisions.
Qualitative testing aims to understand the Whybehind user behavior, uncovering motivations and perceptions. You can use these methods, such as interviews, focus groups, observations, and diary studies, to gather subjective data, including opinions, feelings, and motivations.
Pros:Quantitative testing is a vital method for measuring user behavior and preferences. You can use methods like surveys, SUS, A/B testing, and analytics to gather quantitative data, such as task completion rates and time-on-task metrics.
Pros:Here are the steps to conduct your prototype testing:
Before you begin prototype testing, you must be able to clearly articulate your goals.
This involves:
By defining the test’s purpose and audience, you can select the most appropriate methods later on.
During testing preparation, many tasks must be completed at specific times, and numerous small details need to be monitored.
We highly recommend writing a well-structured test plan to help you stay organized, ensuring nothing is overlooked. Use it to communicate with your team, participants, and stakeholders.
Recruiting participants who closely match your target user profile ensures valuable insights.
If you’re looking for a diverse pool of potential testers in your country, consider leveraging external panels like UXArmy to access a diverse pool of potential testers.
UXArmy specializes in localization testing, offering features like audio and video transcription, translation options in over 30+ languages, and a global tester network.
How many testers are enough? The quality of your participants is often more crucial than the quantity. Aim for a sample size of 5-10 participants who closely match your target user profile.
As a reference, the Nielsen Norman Group suggests that testing with 5 users can identify around 85% of usability problems.
Once you know what to test and why, you can consider the choice of prototype. This includes:
It is time to put everything together. Set up your prototype tests with clear success criteria, including qualitative and quantitative metrics.
Whether you’re testing Figma prototypes, design variation or marketing copy, UXArmy lets you:
With your prototype ready and participants recruited, you’re ready to conduct the tests.
Once you’ve gathered data from your prototype tests, it’s time to analyze the findings and refine your design.
You know the importance of prototype testing in design.
But are you ready to refine your designs and your testing approach? Let’s dive into the best practices for effective prototype testing:
By recruiting the right audience, you can maximize the value of your prototype testing and create a product that truly resonates with your target users.
As design practitioners, we understand that finding suitable testers can be challenging, especially when you’re on a tight timeline. Here’s how to tackle this effectively:
Using specialized tools can significantly speed testing processes, from planning, recruiting, and executing to analyzing results.
Here is a top pick of tools for testing prototypes and gathering insights.
UXArmy is a comprehensive research platform that streamlines the prototype testing process. It enables you to test wireframes, mockups, and interactive prototypes with a global user base. It also offers expert guidance and support throughout testing.
With UXArmy, you can:
Pricing: Custom pricing based on your needs. Check out the demo!
Maze is a powerful tool that helps you understand how users interact with your designs. By testing your prototypes with real users, you can gain valuable insights to improve your product’s usability and user experience.
With Maze, you can:
Pricing: Free plan, paid plans starting at $99/month.
Lookback is another powerful testing tool that allows you to watch users interact with your prototypes in real time.
With Lookback, you can:
Pricing: Free trial available. Paid plans start at $25/month with varying session limits.
UserTesting‘s vast user pool and global reach empower you to conduct in-depth user research for comprehensive testing.
With UserTesing, you can:
Pricing: Custom pricing based on your needs.
If you’re looking for ways to simplify and accelerate the UX research process, Useberry could be your perfect choice.
With Userberry, you can:
Pricing: Free plan, paid plans starting at $67/month.
Ballpark is a powerful unmoderated testing tool that allows users to combine various methods in a project. However, its survey features, like conditional logic and rating scales, may limit marketing teams.
With Ballpark, you can:
Pricing: Free trial, paid plans starting at $100/month.
Here are some practical examples of prototype testing that provide valuable learning opportunities:
Airbnb’s early success highlights the power of prototype testing. By creating a simple website to rent out their apartment, the founders validated the short-term rental concept and gathered user feedback. This early MVP phase shaped Airbnb’s future.
The impact: By testing their early prototype, Airbnb was able to validate their concept, refine their process, and understand user needs with minimal investment.
Key takeaway: Early-stage prototype testing can validate core concepts and identify potential usability issues
Instead of building a functional product, Drew used a simple explainer video to demonstrate how Dropbox would work. It was an innovative approach to validate the idea without extensive development. See the original video on YouTube here: DropBox Demo
The impact: They gauged interest by tracking beta sign-ups as they grew from 5,000 to 75,000 after viewers watched the video and also gathered feedback on the concept.
Key takeaway: Testing doesn’t always require a functional prototype. Sometimes, a simulation can validate demand and guide decisions.
Slack used prototyping to refine and validate their hypothesis during development. They created prototypes to test the concept and identify usability challenges, such as the unclear initiation of threads and the potential for increased clutter in busy channels. By iterating on the design based on user feedback, they improved the feature and made it more user-friendly.
The impact: The iterative design process helped to minimize risks and ensure a smooth launch of the Threads feature.
Key takeaway: Prototype testing isn’t only for designers but also for developers to validate hypotheses, get feedback on specific directions, and evaluate technical plans.
When creating solutions for your product or service, you can’t afford to make assumptions about how users will respond.
Prototype testing helps you identify user pain points, validate design decisions, and refine your product’s user interface and experience.
Ultimately, testing instills confidence in your designs, ensuring they truly resonate with users.
To improve efficiency and maximize the impact of prototype testing, select the right tools to streamline planning, execution, and documentation.
UXArmy empowers you to create exceptional digital products. Our user research platform offers panel recruitment, prototype testing, and advanced analytics to help you gain deep user insights and validate design decisions.
Join countless professionals in simplifying your user research process and delivering results that matter
