Design Operations Guide

Convergent Thinking 3

Testing Prototypes and Evaluating Results

An illustration of the convergent and divergent cycles in the design phase. The cycles are ordered like this: idea generation and concept mapping are divergent; project mapping, skills assessment, and budget making are convergent; references gathering and making are divergent; design analysis, testing, and evaluation are convergent; design expressions and design revisions are divergent; retesting and iteration are convergent.

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Testing prototypes

Now that you’ve created three different versions of you design expression to test with participants, it’s time to test those designs. It’s absolutely normal to feel like your designs will not be well received, or that you’ve missed the mark on this version; you probably have! When the designers of this Guide series have a first draft of any of these works, they are filled with gaps we have to fill and assumptions we hadn’t even realized we’d made. This first version is just the starting point for your design. If you need to review the concept guidance and overview of design and testing to feel like you have a handle on this work, reread the Iteration section and the Feedback section in the HCD Design Phase Concept Guide.

Evaluating Test results

Testing is nothing without rigorous and honest evaluation of your prototypes. An easy way to think about this is to compare the test results to your principles and use cases. Do they answer your participants’ core needs and issues? Do they solve the problem elegantly and without a burden to the participants or stakeholders?

The number of testing and evaluation rounds are highly specific to the nature of your project. A good rule of thumb is to test until you are no longer surprised by the results. If your paricipants achieve what the prototype is designed to help them achieve, then you have a successful prototype that’s ready for pilot! Exciting!