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Testing Your Designs

Now that you've created three different versions of you design expression to test with participants, it's time to test those designs. It's absolutely normal to feel like your designs will not be well received, or that you've missed the mark on this version; you probably have! When the designers of this Guide series have a first draft of any of these works, they are filled with gaps we have to fill and assumptions we hadn't even realized we'd made. This first version is just the starting point for your design. If you need to review the concept guidance and overview of design and testing to feel like you have a handle on this work, reread the Iteration section and the Feedback section in the HCD Design Phase Concept Guide.

Construct your test

Treat design phase testing as a small version of the HCD interviews from the discovery phase. As you move through testing rounds and learn more about what participants want and need from your design, your testing questions will narrow.

Ask open ended questions; don’t fill in silence for the participant; get them to vocalize their experience with the design to let you know how they perceive it. Review interview techniques in the Discovery Phase Operations Guide if you need some refreshment on how to ask open-ended questions.

Note the qualities of the participants’ interactions with the design. Do they pause and have to think for a long time when they’re trying to understand a theme? Do they have to search around for a button in your interface design, or ask questions about the instructions you wrote? All of these interactions should go into your testing notes: they are what we call points of failure in a design, and you want to find them!

Testing Frameworks

Prepare for testing by planning out what part of the design you're testing, how you will introduce the test, and the questions or prompts you will provide. An outline for testing from each of the making activities is provided in this section.

Also provided is a framework for planning and recording the results of your tests. If you start planning out your test and realize that you haven't quite broken down your design into the simplest component parts yet, as you thought you had, not to worry. Revisit your design analysis, break it down further, and then replan your test.

Test: Cardsorting

Who: Test with people who will most likely use your product, service, or system if it is eventually built. They can be people you’ve spoken to during the discovery phase, but they don’t have to be.

For more guidance on recruiting testers, refer to the recruiting section of the Discovery Operations Guide.

Scheduling: Your card sort should take 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the complexity of the information.

How: Lay your card sort out on a table. If there was an information hierarchy that emerged from your discovery research, organize the card sort according to that hierarchy. If you are doing this test digitally, ensure you’re using a collaborative interface that allows people to freely and easily move and change the cards around.

Depending on how prescriptive you need to be, use one of the following card sort approaches:
 open-ended or guided.

In open-ended card sorting, you let the users organize the cards however they see fit. You do not provide a structure, guidance, or directions.

In guided card sorting, you provide a small amount of guidance and instruction to the user and you introduce a framework.

Guided Card Sorting Examples:

  • Importance Spectrum: You can invite participants to organize topics along a spectrum, such as “critical to somewhat critical to unnecessary” or “immediate to somewhat immediate to not immediate”.
  • Categorization: You can invite participants to organize topics by group (likeness) and then organize the groups in relationship to each other.
  • Sequence: You can invite participants to organize topics by sequence as in, “This goes first, then this, and then this…”

Whichever type of card sort you decide is appropriate, ask participants to organize the cards the way they think best, and to think out loud as they organize. Take notes of what they say. If they fall silent, prompt them by asking questions like “What makes you move that card?” or “Why does this card make more sense here?”

Test: Storyboards

Share your story with those who’ll likely enact and administer your concept and those who’ll likely use it. They can be people whom you’ve spoke with during the discovery phase, but they don’t have to be.

For more guidance on recruiting people who can help test the viability of your design concept, refer to the recruiting section of our HCD Discovery Phase Operations Guide.

Scheduling: Allot 30 minutes to share your story and answer questions about it.

How: Generate a list of questions to guide your conversation. Go beyond questions such as “Did you like the idea?” Consider questions like:

  1. Do you recognize yourself in this story?
  2. What does this story get right? Where does it ring true?
  3. Where does it not ring true, and why?
  4. What critical elements does this story capture? Overlook?
  5. What questions do you have after reading this story?
  6. What questions does this story answer for you, if any?

Consider this interview similar to a “mini” discovery interview. To review the structure of a discovery interview, refer to the HCD Discovery Phase Operations Guide. Take careful notes as you talk with participants about your design concept story. These notes will help you decide where and when to revise your concept.

Test: Storywriting

Share your story with those who’ll likely enact and administer your concept and those who’ll likely use it. They can be people whom you’ve spoke with during the discovery phase, but they don’t have to be.

For more guidance on recruiting people who can help test the viability of your design concept, refer to the recruiting section of our HCD Discovery Phase Operations Guide.

Testing Framework

Whether you're using one of the making methods provided in this guide or a method from a different source, use this framework to help you plan your tests.

If you need to, use the following framework for notes during your test. You can also simply use a notebook or scratch sheets of paper.

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