How do you define user testing and feedback for product design?

I once worked on a project testing a new app interface. We asked users, "Is the button in the right place?" They usually said yes. However, when we switched to "What do you think of this button?" users revealed they hadn’t noticed it and found its placement confusing. This taught us the importance of using non-leading questions in user testing. Open-ended questions provide genuine insights, while leading questions can bias responses and give a false sense of security. Moreover, in-person testing proved invaluable. Subtle cues like hesitation, body language, and tone gave us context missed in virtual calls. Face-to-face interactions provided deeper insights and more honest feedback.

User testing, also known as usability testing, is a method used in product design and development to evaluate how real users interact with a product. The primary goal is to identify usability issues, understand user behavior, and gather insights to improve the product's design and functionality. Users complete tasks independently, often using remote testing tools to record their interactions and feedback. Clearly outline the goals of the user testing session, such as identifying usability issues or validating design decisions.

User Testing - One of the final phase of the product design cycle. Where you release a alpha/beta version of your product to a set of users (for them to use). It is a vital iteration as you can identify issues, pain points and blind spots that are missed during the design. You can then start working on the fixes before the actual release of the product.

Feedback in the context of product design refers to the information and insights gathered from users, stakeholders, or other sources about their experiences, opinions, and perceptions of a product. This information is used to understand how well the product meets user needs, identify areas for improvement, and guide future design and development decisions. Input from people invested in the product's success, such as clients, project managers, and team members. Provide qualitative insights and deeper understanding of user experiences and motivations.

Feedback comes in all shapes and sizes: insights gathered from user interviews, design-specific feedback from design critiques, analytics (ie. numbers) from measuring user engagement with your design, and many more. In the product design space, feedback is often used to inform iterations made to designs, guide product strategy decisions that need to be made, and determine the feasibility of engineering implementation.

As designers we always tend to rely on our best possible hypotheses to solve problems but it’s very important to validate the solutions beforehand to make sure if they actually work, this avoids any potential rework and at the same time makes us feel more confident about the products that we build.

Testing and Feedbacks help us identify and analyse issues early before it becomes a loophole for the product. It need not be the final phase of the design process. It can actually be the final process of every phase of the cycle. The sooner we find the issue the better.

User testing can begin during the wireframing and prototyping phase to validate user flows and functionalities. As development progresses, usability testing should occur before beta testing to address any usability issues prior to launch. Post-launch, regular feedback collection through surveys, user analytics, and user interviews ensures continuous improvement based on user behavior.

At times, receiving feedback can feel overwhelming, as feedback often comes from many different directions. What's crucial is: (i) finding an efficient way to synthesize all the data gathered by leveraging AI tools (eg. ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc.) and sense-checking the output, and (ii) prioritizing key feedback to allow you take action on highest impact changes first.

Select participants who match the target audience demographics and use cases to ensure relevant and actionable insights. Combine different methods like moderated, unmoderated, exploratory, and task-based testing to get a comprehensive understanding of user interactions. During moderated sessions, guide users without leading them to specific actions or answers. Let users interact naturally with the product. Use open-ended questions to gather detailed and qualitative feedback, allowing users to express their thoughts and feelings freely.