- An important part of any design process
is taking your ideas and testing them
with potential end users.
This process of making and testing
is called evaluative research.
In this video, we'll look closer at rapid prototyping
and user testing as two tools to help inform
your final design solution.
Both methods work hand in hand through a cycle of
testing, reviewing, and refining to help achieve
the best final solution.
Testing means sharing built prototypes with end users
to determine what's successful and what isn't.
Then you review the user feedback
to identify parts of the prototype that need to be revised.
Refining is interpreting and converting that feedback
back onto the prototype,
and this process of testing, reviewing, and refining
is repeated until a successful outcome is reached.
A prototype is a rough mock-up of your final solution
that you can test with your end user.
A prototype may take on a digital form,
such as an interactive PDF, website wireframe,
or click through storyboard,
or it may also take on a physical form,
such as paper sketches and built models.
Rapid prototyping is a quicker form of prototyping
that focuses on making simplistic models
that can be tested and refined within a design team.
Think of them as a quick and dirty way
to express how something looks or functions
but not necessarily evolved or polished enough
to share with an end user.
Let's consider again our scenario of the train station.
We need to improve the train station's ticketing service
to function more efficiently.
One of the ideas we had for a potential solution
was placing a few interactive kiosks
throughout the station, as an option for people to buy
or print their digital tickets.
Now there's two parts to this kiosk
that we can explore further through rapid prototyping,
the physical form of the kiosk
and the interactive interface.
Let's take a look at how we can further explore
the interactive interface with rapid prototyping.
In this example, we'll look at two different approaches
for the first few screens of how that interface might work.
Here's a simple home screen that greets the customer
and asks them if they want to buy a ticket
or print one they've already ordered.
Our customer chose buy.
The next screen asks for
two important elements of information,
where they're going
and how many passengers they're traveling with.
And finally, they select a destination
from the drop-down menu that you see here.
Okay, now let's look at another quick prototype
of the same interaction.
Welcome.
Are you buying a one way ticket or a round trip?
You've chosen one way.
Where are you headed?
So this is simple, right?
Another quick way to guide a customer
through the ticket purchasing experience,
and using these two rapid prototypes
to discuss how this interaction works
will be a great starting point for our design process.
These types of rapid prototypes
are great for making simple revisions to.
Let's say the language, print your ticket,
was confusing to most people.
We can simply swap it out for, print existing ticket.
Or maybe most people purchase round trip tickets,
but we think they could accidentally
click on the one way ticket button,
because it's at the top.
That's an easy switch too.
So the idea here is to work out the basic details first,
before you get too concerned with how things look
and before you present them to real end users.
It's important to keep your prototype
simple and easily adjustable.
This allows you to make these different iterations
quickly and inexpensively.
Once we have something that we think is a good option,
we can make a more presentable prototype
to show actual users for feedback.
So this is user testing,
and it's the process of validating
refined prototypes with the end users.
To do this, you'll need a group of participants
who represent your end users.
You'll also need a working prototype
that represents the solution you'd like to test,
and it can be beneficial to have
multiple variations of that concept with you,
just in case one particular prototype malfunctions
or turns out to have a glaring problem.
Lastly, you'll need to determine
how you plan on sharing these prototypes with end users
to get their feedback.
Do you test with users in a lab setting,
or do you need to go out into a real context?
Do you work one on one or test with a group together?
Sometimes focus groups work better than
one on one interactions,
especially when you want to get the participants
talking with each other about their experience.
So, we decide to test our digital interface
with potential train riders
and observe how they go through each step,
as if they were actually buying and printing a train ticket.
Here's some of the feedback we received.
"I'm confused by where to select
which time my train leaves."
"I found it difficult to go back to the homepage
once I realized I made a mistake."
"I like how this page feels,
but the type is so small I can barely read it."
"Where do I select my final destination?"
It's important that you observe participants
interacting with the prototypes,
as well as listen to their feedback.
You might notice some points of frustration or anxiety,
a shift in how they're standing, a grimace.
These little gestures can represent an emotion
that they may have left out in their discussions with you.
You can also have a brief closing interview with them,
to provide one more opportunity for feedback.
It may take several iterations
before we can successfully validate
how our design functions
with the range of people who will use it.
User testing is a must do in any design process.
It helps to confirm and validate your research
by putting your design solutions
in the hands of the real end users
and observing how well it works.