Prototyping Sprints
The aim of the prototyping phase is to find a direction to move forward in. We need to quickly find out which directions or aspects of the service work or don't work.
Retrospective
Planning
Sprint activities
Building prototypes
Testing prototypes
Analysing test results
Building prototypes
What you build and how you build it depends on what you need to find out. Always aim to pick the quickest and cheapest option for building what you need.
For example:
If you want to test the information architecture of a site, you can build a tree test
If you want to test the usability of a form, use a form-building tool like Google Forms or Typeform
If you want to test the usability of an interface, try paper sketches, wireframes, or mock ups
If you want to try testing a service with live data, build an HTML prototype that pulls from a live feed
If you want to test an end-to-end transactional service, build an HTML prototype with a (potentially mock-up) backend service that can react to and persist the choices of users
Testing prototypes
Common activities when testing prototypes include:
Interviews with users to better understand their needs
Showing design concepts to users to understand if the concept fits their needs
Testing the usability of an interactive prototype in a moderated session
You must do research with a broad range of users, including:
those with limited digital access and confidence
people with a range of visual, hearing, motor and cognitive impairments
Also see: User research in alpha
Analysing test results
The aim of the analysis stage is to go from raw observations (this user said this, this user did that) to insights (this does not fulfil the user need, that is hard to use)
The raw outputs from the tests might include:
written and digital notes
sketches and photos
audio and video recordings
The best way of doing this is by getting all the useful observations up on the wall on post-it notes. It's best to do this together as a team going through the raw test output.
Once you've done that, you can begin grouping the observations into themes. For example:
common topics
stages in a user journey
individual pages or steps in a transaction
types of user
Decide on a for name each group together. Then generate problem statement that concisely covered everything you've learned.
Ta-da! Now you have insights!
Also see: Analyse a research session
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