User testing best practices


Even just writing a user-test-survey, can make you aware of key insights into how your product should work. There is a famous saying: You should never give the user what they think they want, but what they really need. And thats true. But even more importantly, you should never build what you think you want, because you need to build something that enough people will use, or you will never be sustainable.

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The goals of user-testing:

  • Iterate your product based on real user-insight
  • Get feedback you would never have come up with your self
  • Use the insight in marketing and branding

Different ways to test

  • High-level: ease of use, how does it make you feel
  • Low-level: Steps or tasks to complete (login, add product to cart, etc)
  • Field-testing: sit with the user, let the user use the product in front of you
  • Remote-testing (can be through survey, or remote phone-call)

Making a testing plan

  • Introduce the product, introduce the user
  • Find users to test with (Novice to experts)
  • Make a survey with tasks (5-6 tasks is enough, max 30min)
  • Summarise (Findings, Recommends, Additional info) We use notion for note-taking

Schedule-template

  1. John Smith - Wednesday, 13:00-13:30
  2. Amanda Pirelli - Thursday, 14:00-14:30
  3. Ben James - Friday, 14:00-14:30 …

Survey-template

  1. Sign into app
  2. Add item to cart
  3. Check-out and pay …