How to Test The Prototype of Your Product?


Prototype design is one of the necessary parts in product design and development. Prototype design plays a role which is more important than before. The success of prototype designs, sometimes directly affects the final quality of this product. At the same time, a qualified prototype can simulate the real product from many aspects, it will effectively reflect the problems of this product.

So, how can we analyze the problem of product from a prototype? Here involves the testing of the prototype.

1. The aims and purpose of testing:
The aim of testing a prototype is to simulate the real App, Web or other types of products in the application scenarios, and to problems and risks may exist in actual products.
The purpose of testing a prototype is not the same as the aim. You can have various purposes, for example: you can test whether this is interface user-friendly, whether the result of clicking this button meets what users want,  etc. But, in the testing, you may need to pay attention to one thing: DO NOT have too many purposes in one testing, and please keep the purposes relatively fixed. Especially when you are testing something that really matters in your prototype, I think it would be better to have just one purpose.




2. The objectives and participants of testing:
The objectives should be prototypes, just make sure all the participants have the same, usable prototypes.

What we need to emphasize here are the participants in the testing. Right participants will give you a right feedback. Hence, the success of the testing is mostly depending on the right participants. How to find the right participants? They must be qualified as three features: 1). Your target users. Have some target users as your participants, and you will get some feedback which is more direct and helpful.  2). The users of your competitors. These participants will compare what you offer to them with what they are using naturally. It makes things a lot easier if you want to know your shortcomings. 3). Marketers in your company. Lots of people won't consider them as participants, but I believe that what they have is valuable. First, you need them to sell your product. If even they believe this is a really bad idea, the effectiveness will be extremely low. Second, these people actually know the marketing needs. They not only think what users want, but also think how to let users accept. So, get someone in marketing to do your test, you may gain a surprise.



3. Method of testing:
Many prototype tests have been fixed on a certain kind of device or platform, this sometimes really hurts the enthusiasm of your participants. Prototyping tools like Axure and Justinmind provide limited methods. What I want to talk about is a rising star, Mockplus. This one is really good at providing the method of testing prototypes. You can find 8 methods to meet every participant's need. If you are looking for more information about this, just check out the video and article.

Test Your Prototype in 8 Ways

Axure Vs. Justinmind Vs. Mockplus Vs. Proto.io  - Which Is the Best Prototyping Tool to Test Your Design

Although, prototyping is just part of product design, but a good prototype can offer ways more than what you cost on them. A good prototype is more valuable than you think.

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