If the team working on a project is competent, why should it be bothered with user testing? Because user testing does not mean that anyone is not competent enough. User testing is about avoiding risks and improving a product.
Great teams sometimes deliver wrong products
Yes, why? We perform WELL, we are talented designers, Product owners, Product designers, we know our business, we are good enough so that we don't design unusable stuff… Therefore, our clients can rely on us for delivering simple, intuitive and cutting the edge experiences through great products…
However, there are terrible websites online. There are terrible products on the shelves, there are garments that just don't fit what they are supposed to, there are tools supposed to simplify our lives, but they are just bringing more complexity to our lives.
Have you ever tried to use a tactile keyboard? And a foreign keyboard? and a tactile foreign keyboard? The guys who designed the keyboard of my GPS car system have just delivered something really hard to use. Maybe they thought everyone knows the alphabet, and so it should be intuitive to use this, no matter which country you are from. Well, it is not. At all. They should have tested it…
Keyboard with Alphabetical order layout, the best worst idea I have seen in years.
A keyboard is only a tool. A website is like a tool. It has or supports functionalities, and it helps a specific kind of users to performs their tasks.
One of the most common mistakes leading to serious risks
The people who design a website are rarely the people for whom the website is being redesigned / created. The ‘design team act as if “they” were the users' is a very common way of screwing a project.
In other words, to be convinced that the design team perfectly knows the users is the most common mistake when creating a product. Trying to fit in someone's shoes is important to conceptualise the project. However, analysing data that real users offer during user-testing is the only way to validate what your team designed.
By not performing user testing, you face the following risks:
- Hitting the wrong market for your business
- Failing hardly (or even totally) your business goals
- Losing Customers you hardly earned
- Gaining Customers your business is not interested in
- Losing a lot of money
- Losing a huge amount of money
- Being sued by unsatisfied client's companies
- Hurting very badly your reputation
- Losing your job
You don't want any of the aforementioned to happen? GOOD NEWS! As soon as you are warned that you face a problem, you can use the warning and adapt. Indeed, you just need to get warnings.
User Testing is your answer
You can avoid all these risks by performing user testing. It will help you make a successful project and it helps you to:
- Get clear and unequivocal feedbacks
- Reduce rejection risks
- Improve quickly your product
- Get in touch with the people you expect to adopt your product
To be continued…
Next, How to convince to perform user testing? Answer 5 common objections