When you work on a new product or service or introduce a new product feature to your customer base, it`s very likely that your product concept and design will be based heavily on assumptions. Is that a problem? Well, often you start guessing how your target user wants to use a service or product and around those assumptions, you start designing. No surprise, many products or product features fail after their launch. Users find them difficult to use or even worse won`t get at all why they should use your product. In my input session, I will show you, how you can test product/service assumptions early with simple prototyping and testing. In the hands-on workshop, you will work on and test a simple paper prototype.

1. PROTOTYPING
SERVICES
Rakuten Osaka 21/10/2017
How to test assumptions with paper
prototyping
Mandy Meißner

2. ABOUT ME
Mandy Meißner
Freelance UX & Service
designer based in Kyoto

3. PAPER PROTOTYPES
Why should you test your product or service with
a prototype before launching it?

4. Source: http://digitalbaobab.com/why-digital-products-fail/

5. ABOUT FAILING
75 % of new services or products fail.
The estimated costs of failed services worldwide
are 3 Trillion $.
Source: znet, Shikhar Gosh

6. THE PROTOTYPE
A prototype is an early sample,
model, or release of a product built
to test a concept or process or to act
as a thing to be replicated or learned
from.
Source: wikipedia

7. TEST YOUR ASSUMPTIONS
Validating your ideas... is a wise move no matter
how confident you (and your team) are about
potential.
Heather McCloskey

8. ITERATING
Prototyping is an essential
part of an iterative
development process
Where there are loads of different methods and
tools for prototyping. Paper prototyping is
especially beneficial for early stage testing.

9. THE PAPER THING
Paper is cheap.
Everyone can draw.

10. Source: Dan Roam

11. FROM 0 to 100
How do I build a paper prototype?

12. WHAT ? FOR WHOM
An shopping app for busy mothers is very different
than a service for elderly that need help with doing
the groceries. Think about, who is your target
group.

14. THE JOURNEY
Write down the necessary tasks from a users
perspective.

16. DRAW THE PROTOTYPE
Concentrate on the most necessary tasks, the user
has to perform to get his/her work done.
Thinks of patterns like a landing page, sign up oder
checkout.

17. Source: uxintensive

18. FACILITATING A TEST
After you finished your prototype. It´s time
to prepare some questions and find users to
test your prototype with.

19. FIND YOUR TARGET GROUP
Think again, for whom are you designing?
Where can you find this group? An easy
access are friends and family but they might
be biased. Also internet forums are a great
place to find your target group.

20. THE QUESTIONNAIRE
With a paper prototype you are facilitating a
qualitative user test.
Focus on the „Why“.
You want to find out, if your interviewee
understands your service idea and the basic
flow of the prototype.

21. HELPFUL PATTERNS
„I don’t understand why…”
Why do you think it looks like this?
„I don`t know how this got here.”
How do you think this got here?

23. START TESTING
The good thing: you`ll get better with every test...

24. Source: http://unicornux.co/quick-steps-to-integrate-usability-testing-into-your-work-flow/

25. THE CHALLENGE
Build a new digital service/product for ...
that ... but have no time ...”

26. INSTRUCTIONS
1 Ask for the users first impression
How would you use this service/product?
Please show me where you would click/tap first.
What do you think this service/product is for?
2 Let the user show you how he/she would navigate
Where would go next?
What would be your next step?
3 Ask for a final feedback
Would you use it? Why? Why not?

27. THANK YOU.