Overview of Testing Stage

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Congratulations! You’ve made it to the final stage of the process – the Testing Stage.

Like all stages, there’s no sharp line between the Prototyping Stage and the Testing Stage. The main difference is that testing involves putting a prototype into use in a real-life environment, with real-life users. In saying ‘real-life environment,’ we’re interested in seeing if the prototype is developed enough to actually deliver a programme, service or product to the people most-affected by it, them being ‘real-life users.’ Ultimately, you’re testing to get reactions from the most-affected people and measuring to understand whether your proposed solution improves their experience.

The Testing Stage requires your team to put the solutions that you’ve designed into practice in order to accept or reject them. Here, you have the ability to add or remove parts of the concept until the full experience is produced. Only then can your team finalise the details of what will be launched.

It’s crucial to mention that testing isn’t about one-size-fits-all solutions. Each case is unique and requires your team to determine the best way to take solutions forward based on stakeholder needs, people’s experiences, existing processes, etc. To this end, this stage provides a range of tools to choose from, including imagining service scenarios, journey mapping, solution framing, concept testing and campaign/programme/service/product blueprinting. You’ll see how to bring these tools to life in the pages that follow.

Here’s a last piece of advice on the Testing Stage: At this point, it may serve you to return to a curious mindset, similar to the one in the Empathy Stage. You should be open to witnessing and capturing how people react to your solution in the real world.