Lessons learned from testing prototypes in

real life

Tilen Travnik, Dlabs@tilentravnik

A short story about people wearing special clothing ... and

prototypes.

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A prototype is an early sample, model or release of a product

built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.

Wikipedia

Or for your boss: “A way for us to save lots of money by

doing stuff with paper first.Sign here Bob!”

Case 1

Case 2

Typical web/mobile product development phases

IdeasUser

Stories Wireframes Prototypes Products

Fre “Free € € €€€€€€

Damn Users :|

Levels of Prototype

• Paper & ink (cards, fipcharts, whiteboards)

• Digital (PPTs, Appcooker, Popapp, Axure ...)

• Technologycal (HTML or other)

• Physical (3D printing, handcrafting ...)

• Mental :)

Types of feedback

•Hypotesis validation

• Pricing/framing

•Weaknesess, defects

•New ideas

• ...

Extracting data

• User testing (video, observers, listening)

• Analytics

• Inspection after use

• Telemetry

That’s nice.

But where are the freaking lessons?

Be creative.Use stuff laying around.

Make it look intentional.White box, white lables.

Test the whole product cycle.Manufacturing, shipping, on the shelf, usage ...

Test in real enviroment.Noise, gloves ...

Use real numbers and vocabulary.An incorrect sum can distract the user. NO Lorem Ipsum!

Thanks!