Philosophy
Physical products from laptops to games consoles to radios and other home appliances undergo a trial by fire when they are released to consumers. Small design changes or oversights can cause big problems with ease of use, learning, context within the environment of use, and satisfaction and pleasure. Negative sentiments towards products spread rapidly through word of mouth, social networking and review sites which can damage current and future offerings to the market. It’s vital to invest in a validation program to identify and rectify problems as early as possible to avoid this.
How it works
A product is put in front of real existing or potential customers in our studio, or if necessary, in their own home or office. They then use the product whilst guided along a semi-structured interview / activity list by a professional moderator and usability expert. These interviews are 1-2 hours in length and probe the participants’ inner thoughts as well as observing their behaviour and actions.
We usually recruit 12 participants to evaluate a product, and patterns begin to clearly emerge during this evaluation which help us to identify the extent to which a product is easy to set up out of the box, desirable, satisfying, easy to operate, easy to prevent and recover from errors, and suitable in its physical characteristics such as size and shape.
A presentation style report is delivered which uses both the real customer insight and the consultants’ expert opinions to identify issues and provide design recommendations. Issues can be traffic light coded according to severity and the project can be turned around rapidly to accommodate the design life cycle. Evaluations can take place at any stage of design from concept to prototype to pre of post release final product.