10 essential UX testing methods

Validation is the cornerstone of MVP product development. It's the fuel that powers the MVP Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop. There are a number of different testing methods that can be used to help define MVP and continuously improve UX iteratively by applying Build-Measure-Learn cycles.

The following are 10 essential UX testing methods that can be used to help validate your MVP:

1. Survey: The most cost-effective way to find out who your users are, what they want, what they do, what they purchase, where they shop, and what they own is to survey them. You can find survey software that is free, so there's no excuse.
2. Persona/market segmentation: Use the survey data and identify meaningful patterns and behaviors among your user groups. Surface what functions certain segments demand as well as the pain points they experience. Find your MVP market sweet spot within your market segment.
3. Contextual inquiry: Sometimes it's difficult for users to communicate exactly what they want or what they are trying to achieve. It's always ideal to observe users in their environment performing the tasks and functions that are critical to their role. You can probe and survey them while they are performing their tasks to discover what works and what needs improving.
4. SME/stakeholder interviews: There's a lot of information that can be tapped internally within your own organization. Interview any SMEs, customer support, QA, development, marketing, or sales personnel to find out what needs to be built, for whom, and why.
5. Task analysis: Measure discoverability, usability, and performance by observing users engaged in specific tasks and workflows.

1. Moderated in-person testing: This is ideal for mobile device testing, or when it's tough to put prototypes up remotely, test users in a lab, conference room, or even a coffee shop to gather invaluable feedback and insight.
2. Moderated remote testing: This is the cheapest form of user testing available. Using services such as Zoom meetings, Google Forms, and InVision allow you to record and moderate user tests anywhere on the internet. Helps expands your recruitment base, and doesn't limit user pools.
3. A/B testing: This can be used in many conditions, remote, moderated, and so on. Comparatively test layouts, interface controls, buttons, CTAs, colors, tasks, performance... the sky's the limit.
4. Comparative benchmark study: Comparatively test the same tasks on competitive applications. Use core metrics such as completion rates, time and task difficulty as a basis for creating benchmarks. For example, is the checkout process at Zappos faster, more efficient, and easier to use than the checkout process at Amazon?
5. Multivariate testing: One-variable-at-a-time testing can take a long time, and you will quickly burn through your testers a lot faster than expected. If you need to test often, performing multivariate tests will allow you to not only maximize the returns you get from your testing pool, but also give you a great idea of how your experience works as a whole. For instance, changing the color of a button will glean some data, but nothing compares to the data you mine when you change the location, color, and label of the button and test all the variants together. You can do multivariate tests on both live and prototype environments. Products such as Optimizely helps you organize and launch multivariate tests in live environments with real users.