3 Simple Ways to Validate Your App Design Without Spending a Dime
Don’t have enough money or resources to test your idea for an app? You shouldn’t let it stop you! I have a couple of simple tricks up my sleeve — thanks to them, your app will become much better from the very beginning, and you’ll get to know your users’ needs.
The process of creating and developing a product from scratch is always filled with difficulties. Things often don’t go as planned, and at the top of that, it might turn out that your idea doesn’t fit the market’s needs. We always imagine, that our products will meet those needs perfectly and a bunch of people will use it. Unfortunately, it is not so easy — in reality, 9 in 10 startups will fail, and according to their founders, the biggest reason for it is that they made products that no one wanted.
To make sure that doesn’t happen to us, we have to focus on people — they are the crucial part of the success of the product. That’s why the earlier we start to talk to people and gather data about their behaviors, the more chance we have to create something that people will actually use. We need to focus on who is our audience, what problems do they have, and why they might want to use our app.
To find out those things, the best thing to do is validate our ideas as early as we can, even before creating any design in digital form. The easiest way to do it is to put your idea on paper and test it this way. You can discover many significant problems with your solution just by showing it to people and asking them how, and if they will use it. And you really might be surprised what you will learn from them.
Of course, we can get the best results from testing our target users. In a dream world, we’d probably use sophisticated tools in a lab environment — we’d put our faith in eye-tracking research, focus group testing, diary panel, and other things that sound both very professional and very expensive.
Fortunately, there is no need to give up on testing when we can’t do it in an ideal way. Besides, start-up process is usually far away from ideal ;) There are a few other methods that can give us satisfying answers without draining our wallets — it is always better to do any research then none! Especially when it still provides value knowledge — such as those tricks I use all the time:
1. Look for online communities of people that might be interested in your solution.
Dive deep enough, and you’ll get very raw, very informative data, that will help you build something that meets needs of these people. You can search in Facebook groups, online forums, some thematic websites. You can also ask them questions and initiate conversations that will show you their perspective.
2. Test your solutions with people you work with.
They might not be your target audience, but they can tell you if they understand the interface of your design. It doesn’t consume much time, and you can spot things you should improve very quickly. And they’re gonna have some fun too!
3. Go into the field.
Let’s assume you think about an app for taxi drivers — go to them and observe how they work, what are their challenges and how you can help them. You can also ask them some questions directly, as you will do on online forums. That can take only half a day, and you will understand your target audience much better.
Even with a very tight budget for the product, I don’t want to base my work only on a hunch. Those tricks helped me a few times to make design decisions with a clear conscience. They also turned out to be extremely valuable when I discussed the possibilities for product strategy with my team. I was able to present the users’ preferences and habits, so it was much easier to set a clear path for future of the product.
You can use those three methods alternatively from one another or even pick all of them for one project if you have a need and time. On the other hand, you should also remember that each project has different requirements. Maybe you will find an entirely different way of getting to know your clients and their habits well — the most important thing is to realize that you need to do this. There’s no workaround — neglecting your target audience will give you a costly spot in an infamous club of those 90% startups that fail miserably.
I hope that my pieces of advice will help you join other clubs, such as Fortune Global 500 ;) Remember, don’t wait for resources — your testing process doesn’t have to be perfect. Just do the best with all you got!
Do you have your own ways to do research quickly? Share your tips in the comments. If you found this article useful tap it 👏, follow our publication, and share, so others can enjoy it, too. Oh, and be sure to check out our awesome designs on Dribbble. We are really proud of our work!
Thanks for your time!
