Prototype testing: How to nail your next product launch

You’ve been working relentlessly on the latest design—it’s looking great and you’re raring to go. Nice one. But before you confidently hand it over to the engineering team to make it a reality, it’s time to get some feedback and test your prototype with users.

In this article, we take you through a step-by-step process on how to test your prototype, and give you some tips on how to get effective results. We spoke to Caitlin Goodale, Senior Product Designer at Memrise, and Chris Roy, CPO at Boatim and former Lead Product Designer at TravelPerk, to provide you with expert tips on the matter. But before we get started, let’s look at how prototype testing works, the benefits of testing a prototype and when you should test in the design process.

Prototype testing is the process of testing your prototype with real users to validate design decisions before development starts. The goal is to identify problems and areas of improvement early so you can make the necessary changes prior to development and build a product that meets users' needs and expectations.

Prototype testing is an essential part of the design and product development process. The way you go about testing your prototype depends on the type of product, where you are in the development process, your goals, and the resources available. But here are some general steps to follow.

Before you build your prototype and start testing, you should have a clear idea of what you want to validate. This will help you define the kind of prototype you need. Prototypes can vary in complexity, from low-fidelity sketches to fully functional and interactive prototypes. While low-fidelity prototypes are used for testing out concepts, high-fidelity prototypes are great for testing usability and identifying issues in the workflow.

Once the prototype is ready, it’s time to get it in front of your users. When you run the test, try to recruit participants that are representative of your target audience. By watching how users interact with your prototype and listening to their feedback, you’ll learn what works and what needs to be improved. The insights gathered will allow you to iterate and create a better product.

There are many benefits to prototype testing, including launching a product confidently, knowing your design works and has been validated with real users before release, and finding and fixing major usability issues at the design stage. Let’s look at the five main benefits of testing your prototype.

Imagine launching a product and then realizing that people take a lot of time finding the “confirm” button. That’s going to be a headache to solve when it’s already live and coded. By testing your prototype, you can find these “black holes” in your design before it goes live and patch them up.

For instance, Yuna Akazawa, Product Designer at Braze, tested two versions of a prototype with users which helped her determine the best user flow and placement of a “Media upload” preview on the page.

Can people actually navigate through your app? Do people understand what your copy instructs them to do? Does the design encourage discoverability? By testing your prototype with real people, you get to examine and refine your ideas early in the product development process and launch confidently.

If your customers’ experience with your product isn’t great, you will be met with negative feedback sooner or later. By getting input from real people before you release, you can avoid negative user experiences and feedback when you launch your product. Caitlin shares why early feedback is so valuable:

It’s cheaper to fix a design in the prototype stage than when you’ve coded the product and it’s already launched. In fact, it can be 100 times more costly if you have to fix the problem post-launch. Furthermore, you can save up to 50% of rework time if you have a solid prototype testing regime in place. As Caitlin says:

Say the marketing department isn’t keen on a redesign, but the PM backs up the idea all the way. By testing a prototype with users, you can use quantitative and qualitative user research to get buy-in and back up decisions with data at the design stage. What’s more convincing than real feedback from your target audience?

Testing your prototype and getting early-stage feedback on your work is essential. A product that hasn’t been tested with users is doomed to fail. It might be perfect in your head—hey, you’ve been working for hours on it—but by being so close to the project, you could be overlooking major problems in your product.

By testing your prototype early, you can bring your customers into the process and incorporate their feedback into the final product iteration.

The sooner you get your users to view your design work, the better. Lo-fi prototype testing happens at the earliest stages of the design process with a paper prototype or basic wireframe.

With a low-fidelity prototype, you can test:

As you move onto your medium-fidelity designs, you should be taking all the user feedback onboard, polishing your design up, and begin to add some early-stage copy. You want to really validate your concepts here—test early and test often.

After you’ve made your changes in the UX design tool or prototyping tool based upon the findings of your low- to medium-fidelity tests—it’s time to get user feedback on your hi-fi design.

At this stage, you should be pretty confident with your design—any big issues should have been solved during earlier tests. You shouldn’t be looking for huge UX flaws, instead, this hi-fi prototype test should be a final step in your design testing process to truly validate your final iteration and to uncover any hidden usability issues before handing over the designs to the development team.

With a hi-fi prototype, you can get insights on:

You’ve made the decision to test your prototype—excellent choice. So how do you go about actioning this? No sweat, we’ve put together a step-by-step guide for you to follow.

Clarity is key here. What exactly are you looking to test? Avoid being vague with your end goal to ensure you get those key results that will be actionable at the end of the testing.

❌ “I want to test my prototype”

✅ “I want to find out if people can book a hotel through my prototype”

❌ “I want to see if people like the design”

✅  “I want to find out if people can book a hotel through my prototype” “I want to see if users can navigate with ease through my app”

❌ “Is the copy engaging?”

✅ “Does the copy encourage people to make a purchase?”

It's important you determine the goal of testing prototypes before you create the prototype. Being clear on the goal will help you determine the kind of prototype you need (low vs. high-fidelity), and the type of elements you need to include in it (e.g., copy, illustrations).

An obvious one here—without a prototype there will be no prototype testing. What kind of prototype you create will depend on what stage of testing you’re at and, as mentioned above, on your test goal. If you’re doing lo-fi prototype testing, it might be on paper or be online in its most basic form (a mockup or wireframe), whereas if you’re at the hi-fi prototype stage, you’ll be using a tool like Figma or Sketch to create an interactive prototype that's as close to the real product as possible.

Who will you invite to test your prototype? If you’re launching a fitness tracking app, it would make sense to only include test participants who work out at least twice a week.

Similarly, if you were launching a product that helps undergrad students manage their workload, you’d want to limit the age to under 25. In other words, you need to test with the right target audience. Like Caitlin says:

When you test your prototype, you should look to include both current customers and users who haven’t interacted with your product before to get the best results, Caitlin recommends the following:

What usability method are you going to use to test your prototype? Will it be moderated or unmoderated? Will you invite users into the office or would you rather test remotely? It generally depends on the product and the goals of your test.

If you have a tangible product, it makes sense to invite users into the office to try things out as IKEA does to test their chairs. But this is a costly way of testing. For those of us in the digital world, it might be quicker to use an online testing tool that allows us to get insights from users around the world.

→ Want to get actionable insights quickly and remotely? Discover how Maze’s user testing works.

Set a clear task for users to achieve. To encourage action, tell a story about your scenario that broadens their mind.

For example, imagine you’re working on a new product that will help people find the best brunch bars in town for them. Instead of simply asking them to pick somewhere to go eat, create a scenario that places the user in a realistic scenario:

“It’s a Saturday morning and you’re in the mood for Eggs Benedict. You want to go with two of your friends to get some food, but don’t want to walk more than one mile. Choose somewhere to go that will cost you less than $20 per head.”

This gives your user the opportunity to take their own path as they test your prototype. Different people will interact in different ways and you can really understand how people are using it when you write great usability tasks.

Throughout your prototype testing, you have the chance to ask usability questions that will give you even more insight. Make sure you pick the right ones to get effective feedback. Over to Caitlin for her best icebreaker question for prototype testing:

Curious for more questions? Here are some examples of prototype testing questions to ask at various stages of the process:

Screening

Before the test

During the test

After the test

Wrapping up a prototype test can be difficult. Users have spent a certain amount of time interacting with your design and you want to maximize your insights before they go. Chris recommends asking “What one thing would you improve about X?” as your final question. And the reason behind it is a great one:

The time has come—it’s prototype testing day. Consider a trial run with a colleague or friend if you’re going to be doing the testing in-house, or set up a pilot test in your remote testing app so that you’re 110% prepared before doing a real-world test.

→ Check out what a prototype test with Maze looks like here.

After you go through your responses and analyze the test results—it’s time to share them with all key stakeholders. Whether it’s good—cue the beers—or not so great, you now know what you need to improve the user interface and experience and iterate on to get to the next stage of your product launch process.

Make sure to create and share a test report so everyone is on the same page and consider bullet-pointing the next steps. Chris explains why this is essential:

It will take a few tries to really nail your prototype tests and you’ll learn along the way what works best for your industry or sector. Here's our top tips to send you on your way: