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Testing and validating a new product
Client: Customer Experience Management Software Company
Team: design researcher (myself), design research assistant
My Deliverables:
- Qualitative and generative research, analysis, and synthesis
- Concept development and strategy
Challenge:
Early in their development process, the client wanted to find potential pain points and test the general user understanding of their new software. In the first of a multi-stage research plan, our goals were to understand if users were able to complete the first phase of a multi-phase software.
Stage 1: Initial low-fidelity prototype test
Research Approach and Methods Used
Using high-fidelity paper mockups, we organized several one hour usability tests to test users navigating several simple tasks. This rapid test would help us understand phase-specific observations and pain points as well as overall considerations for the entire software.
Key Learnings
- Users appreciated the software design and were able to navigate through the first stage.
- Some of the subtasks, action language, and navigation were not entirely intuitive and required some clarification and moderator direction.
- Users compared the software to analogous tools and had difficulty understanding the intended use and flow.
Design Considerations for Future Iterations
Based on our learnings, we made both high-level and task-specific recommendations for the next iteration of the software including:
- Modifying and clarifying language to create more continuity and more predictable for users
- More uniformity in feature placement (buttons, information, etc
- Give more context for the software’s key features and clarify the flow/navigation
Stage 2: software test
Research Approach and Methods Used
After improvements from the prototype to the software, we used the pre-launch software to test the same tasks.
Key Learnings
- Users were pleasantly surprised by the amount offered in the free trial and were willing to spend the time to learn the robust software.
- Users needed more context for NPX Now and NPS best practices.
Design Considerations for Future Iterations
Based on our learnings, we continued to finesse our recommendations from the previous work.