Testing requires patience.
Slowing the pace down. Creating a slow-motion mode, which allows us to see the little flaws, the details that could be amplified with a thousand stores, 10 000 users, 1 million transactions.
Tuning in to our curious mode and asking why again and again, even when the answer seems obvious. We want to learn about the mindset of the person testing our prototype.
With people-centred design, we have to test with people
always taking care to be a guide, not a salesperson. We have to present the context and the prototype and allow the person to interact with it, letting the situation flow.
If the prototype is incorrectly used we have to understand why, resisting the urge to correct the person and to show them a supposed right way. With testing we are learning, not teaching.
The results will bring about new ideas, but we also have to be ready to abandon paths that seemed promising but failed miserably in testing.
We cannot cling to our initial beliefs, the way we see the world, since we are rarely the best people to evaluate our own ideas.
Testing is a new opportunity to enter empathy mode, opening our minds to the discovery of more reasons and convictions, more hidden needs that could become opportunities.
Sometimes testing makes us rethink the original problem. From the first phase of Design Thinking – empathy – this is the moment we go back into contact with the exterior of our project. It is therefore an opportunity to look at the problem and decide whether the tests validate its original definition or if we should make corrections, and run the methodology cycle again –
as many times as necessary, since this is a virtuous cycle of learning and creativity.
