We went to a workshop organized by UXHK where different companies shared their app/website development processes. To our surprise, getting feedback from users (or simply talking to users directly) is either missing or is outsourced to another team. Designers and engineers don’t have a chance to interact with the users directly, although they are the ones who spend 3 - 6 months of their time building something for the users.
As mentioned by the successful entrepreneur Steve Blank, “no business plan survives first contact with a customer”. We understand that finding users for testing can be expensive and time consuming, so here are some quick and lean methods to get user feedback:
| Typical Methods | Lean Methods | |
|---|---|---|
| Use a prototype to see whether users like your app/site | Use existing apps that you can download from the App Store to simulate the experience. | |
| Show a workable app to users and get their feedback | Use prototyping tools or HTML to approximate the actual app | |
| After the app is launched | conduct focus groups to get user feedback | Use analytics to get the feedback and study user behavior |
For example, in the Abbott Kindergarten Interview app, we used Facetime to simulate the experience of Kindergarten interviews and HTML to build a prototype app. Finally, we used Google analytics to study the user behavior.
