

Ask HN: Best way to conduct user testing? - Swizec

Hello,<p>I'm one of the founders of a startup from Slovenia that's been performing customer development 
for the past few months and we think we've discovered the right product to wrap our idea into. 
The quickest description of what we're building goes "Pandora meets Evernote for RSS", 
or if you're not into that sort of analogies, it's a personalised newspaper-ish thing that lets 
you to process all the RSS feeds you're following.<p>Anyhow, onward to my question. Our past experience has shown that getting quality alpha/beta testers
is very difficult, so this time 'round we have promised to lend everyone who applies an iPad for a few days 
and on our launch at the end of the summer our "favourite" tester gets to keep the iPad.<p>But since iPads don't come cheap, how can we make the best out of the whole experience? I was thinking
about setting up a programme where the testers have to bring the device in every evening to be updated
with the new daily build and while we're upgrading the app, the tester answers a survey about their experiences
and so on.<p>Is that a good way to do this, or do better ways exist? More important still, how would one
go about designing good questionnaires? What sort of things should we be on the look out for? How can we
make sure the users answer even those questions we didn't think of asking etc.?<p>Thanks for the help,
~Swizec
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garrickvanburen
After 10+ years of evaluating how a software product resonates with people -
my preferred technique is very simple and inexpensive.

1\. Find some people that you'd like to use your product 2\. Spend an hour
talking to them, one on one. Confirm they have the problem your product
solves, talk with them about the products they currently use to solve the
problem. Have them show you how they use those products. 3\. Really listen.
Ask stupid questions about what they're doing and why they're doing it. 4\.
Towards the last 15 minutes of the conversation - have them try out your
product. Have them talk about the differences between the product they're
familiar with and your product. 5\. Really listen. Ask stupid questions about
how they're expecting your product to behave. Prevent yourself from justifying
your product or asking them to imagine what could be. Just listen.

