Researching and Prototyping your Startup Ideas

TOM HACZEWSKI@THEHACKSAW

RESEARCHING AND PROTOTYPINGYOUR STARTUP IDEAS

WHO ARE WE?

• User Experience agency

• Started in Feb 2015

• User research, prototyping, design,

workshops & training

• Working with startups, larger

businesses and partner agencies

SO WHAT IS UX, AND WHY DO I

NEED TO THINK ABOUT IT?

FINDING PROBLEMS AND

SOLVING THEM

“It’s a commitment to

developing products and

services with purpose,

compassion, and

integrity”Whitney Hess, Empathy Coach

PURPOSE

COMPASSION

INTEGRITY

THAT’S ALL VERY NICE…

…BUT PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS

You should understand your users so deeply,

that you can design a product that your users

can deeply understand

REVENUES UP 35%

$80M ADDITIONAL REVENUE

#0044CC

88% LESS LIKELY TO

RETURN

CUSTOMER VALIDATION

DESIGN

CUSTOMER VALIDATION

DESIGN

(RAPID) DESIGN

HOW TO DESIGN SOMETHING IN 54 33(ish) HOURS

• Start with useful, then make it usable

• KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid

• MVP - Minimum Viable Product (actually, MPP)

• Don’t do everything at once

• Define journeys then build on them

(RAPID) DESIGN

USER JOURNEYS

(RAPID) DESIGN

PAPER PROTOTYPING

(RAPID) DESIGN

LO-FIDELITY PROTOTYPING

(RAPID) DESIGN

LO-FIDELITY PROTOTYPING

(RAPID) DESIGN

ITERATE!

LEARN

BUILD

MEASURE

CUSTOMER VALIDATION

DESIGN

CUSTOMER VALIDATION

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

• What problem am I solving?

• How many people experience this problem?

• What do these people look like?

• How am I helping them solve this problem?

CUSTOMER VALIDATION

SOME WAYS TO VALIDATE

• Surveys

• Interviews

• Remote user testing

• Eyetracking

Google Forms

WRITING GOOD SURVEYS• Use short, sharp, simple questions

• Ask questions about recent experiences

• Don’t ask too many questions - and only one at a time

• Multiple-choice works best, and avoid overlapping answers

• Don’t ask for opinions - but do ask for facts and reasons

• Don’t repeat yourself - questions should not be similar!

• Remember the context and audience will create bias

WRITING GOOD SURVEYS

Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a

snack or dessert. It is usually made from dairy products,

such as milk and cream, and often combined with fruits or

other ingredients and flavours.

Most people love ice cream. On a scale of 1-18, how much

do you not hate ice cream?

WHY INTERVIEW?

• Start with similar short, sharp questions

• Ask open-ended questions afterwards. Here’s a good one: “Why?”

• Remember, interviews give context and further reasoning

REMEMBER:

OPINIONS ARE DANGEROUS

FIND THE FACTS

REMOTE USER TESTING• A quick way to get real, impartial feedback

• Quite cheap and fast to get started

• Test any website you like

• Test unreleased iPhone/Android apps

• You can even test your low-fidelity prototypes

• Remember: it will be biased

• Simple, open-ended tasks

• Don’t lead the participant

• Try writing 3-4 tasks per test

REMOTE USER TESTING

WHAT SORT OF TASKS?

WHY EYETRACKING?

• Helps provide context

• It’s behaviour, not opinion

• See what’s noticed, and what isn’t

• Identify overall understanding

• It’s superbadass

• Gaze plots

• Heatmaps

• Area of Interest

maps

EYETRACKING IS A TOOL

NOT AN ANSWER

TOM HACZEWSKI@THEHACKSAW

ASK ME QUESTIONS

TOM HACZEWSKI@THEHACKSAW

THANK YOU

Want to test in the lab today/tomorrow?

www.theuserstory.com/syncthecity

Want to test other people’s prototypes?

www.labapp.co.uk/syncthecity