Experimentation Methods
A curated collection of lean experimentation and research methods to help you validate ideas, discover insights, and optimize your product-market fit. Lists both hypothesis-confirming and exploratory methods.
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Case Study
A detailed investigation of a single unit, such as a person, site, or project, using multiple data types to explore how context, implementation, and other factors contribute to observed outcomes. It involves gathering and analyzing information directly from the unit or its stakeholders.
Causal Mapping
This method involves coding and synthesizing qualitative statements about causal relationships from external sources such as interviews, conversations, or documents. The coded data is then visualized as maps to represent how individuals or groups perceive causal connections, enabling analysis of these perceived pathways.
Collaborative Synthesis
A multi-stage process where the team first drafts themes from collected data, then invites external stakeholders or co-designers to collaboratively validate, adjust, and finalize those themes and insights through structured discussion.
Community Scoping
A structured research process to gather and synthesize information about a community, such as its demographics, social structures, and engagement preferences, using methods like community mapping. The resulting profile is used to tailor projects or strategies to the community's characteristics.
Comparative Case Studies
Evaluators analyze multiple cases (e.g., program sites or contexts) to compare how implementation and outcomes align with or deviate from the program's theory. They document variations, similarities, and the reasons behind them to assess the theory's validity across different environments.
Competitive Analysis
The team examines competitors' existing products, strategies, and market performance to understand how they address similar problems and needs. This involves identifying gaps in their solutions to inform the development of a unique value proposition.
Contribution Analysis
A theory-based evaluation approach where a causal theory of change is developed or reviewed, then tested against existing and newly gathered evidence. The process involves assessing the plausibility of the intervention's contribution to outcomes, ruling out alternative explanations, and iteratively refining the theory with input from external stakeholders or data sources.
Cost Utility Analysis
Evaluators gather preferences from external stakeholders to assign utility values to outcomes, then combine these with detailed cost data to calculate and compare cost-utility ratios for different alternative options. Sensitivity analysis is used to address uncertainty in the results.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
The method involves systematically identifying, quantifying, and assigning monetary values to all costs and benefits associated with a product or initiative, then comparing them in a common metric to determine net value. It requires input from those affected by it and those implementing it.
Customer and Sales Feedback Analysis
The team reviews existing customer service records, support tickets, emails, bug reports, or feature requests, and/or collects feedback from customer-facing staff (e.g., sales or support) about their interactions with external parties to identify recurring issues, objections, or themes in user problems and requests.
Discussion Forums
Monitor existing online communities to gather organic discussions, complaints, and needs expressed by external participants. This involves analyzing publicly available posts and threads to identify patterns or insights.
Environmental Footprint Calculators
A tool that compiles evidence on the environmental effects of various activities and allows users to input their own activity data to estimate the resulting impact.
Family Tree
The team searches for and examines existing manual solutions, such as scripts, macros, or checklists, created by others to address the same problem or prevent the same errors. This involves reviewing external artifacts to confirm that workarounds already exist.
General Elimination Methodology
This method involves two stages: identifying possible explanations for an observed outcome, including the impact of a specific product or initiative, through techniques like interviews, literature review, or brainstorming, then gathering and analyzing data to eliminate alternative explanations.
GIS Mapping
Data variables are visually represented on a geographic map, typically using color coding to indicate values such as density, frequency, or percentage across regions. Additional information, such as specific sites or temporal changes, can be overlaid on the map.
Needs Analysis
A structured process to identify and analyze the needs of a target group, such as individuals, organizations, communities, or the people affected by a specific initiative. It examines needs through expert input, comparisons, direct articulation by those affected, or observed demand for services, focusing on their perceived value, priorities, and concerns.
Negative Programme Theory
A theory-building exercise that maps how a product or initiative could lead to unintended negative outcomes. It involves gathering insights from external stakeholders, direct observation, and existing literature, then structuring these into a logic model with negative impacts as the endpoints.
Outcome Harvesting
Evaluators identify and document observable changes in people, groups, or institutions, then trace how an intervention plausibly contributed to those changes. They gather and verify information from external sources, including interviews and existing records, to substantiate the outcomes and their significance.
Process Tracing
A case-based, theory-driven method for causal inference. It examines a single case in depth, applying specific evidence tests to assess whether a specific change contributed to observed outcomes and to rule out alternative explanations.
Realist Evaluation
A theory-driven evaluation approach that begins by articulating how an intervention is expected to work, including the mechanisms, contexts, and outcomes. It then gathers and analyses data from external sources (e.g., stakeholders, programme records) to test and refine this theory, producing explanations of how and why outcomes occur in specific contexts.
Search Trend Analysis
Analyze publicly available online search data, such as search volume, related queries, or historical trends, to determine whether people are actively seeking solutions to a problem, reveal changes in interest, seasonality, or emerging popularity, and validate real-world demand or interest without direct interaction with individuals.
Social Media Listening
Monitor public social media platforms for mentions of specific keywords, brands, or competitors, then analyze the collected posts to extract trends, opinions, and feedback from external users.
Social Return On Investment
A structured process where stakeholders collaboratively define scope, map inputs and outcomes, and monetarily value social, environmental, and economic impacts through interviews and other tools. The results are summarized in an SROI ratio and narrative report, with verification to ensure credibility.
Systematic Review
A structured process to locate, critically appraise, and combine findings from multiple existing studies to answer a specific research question, following a predefined protocol with explicit inclusion/exclusion criteria and quality appraisal of each study. When the included studies report comparable quantitative results, the synthesis can include a meta-analysis — statistically pooling those studies' data into a single combined effect-size estimate.
Web Analytics
The method involves analyzing data from a live website or system, such as clicks, form submissions, and traffic patterns, to map the user journey, identify inefficiencies, and pinpoint pain points or bottlenecks. If visitor numbers are too low to yield useful data, additional traffic can be directed to the site through external means.
A Day In The Life
A researcher shadows a person through their natural environment over a typical day, unobtrusively observing their real activities and routines without structured prompts or scripts, to document their habits and context.
Cognitive Task Analysis
Analysts observe and analyze the cognitive processes of external users as they perform tasks, focusing on how they make decisions, recall information, perceive problems, and solve them to uncover their mental models.
Contextual Inquiry
Researchers visit and observe external participants in their own environment, such as home or workplace, asking open-ended questions and sometimes collaborating directly with them to understand their tasks, behaviors, and context.
Developmental Evaluation
An evaluator works alongside a product team to collect and analyze data in real time, enabling rapid testing of ideas, tracking of developments, and continuous feedback to adapt innovations in complex or uncertain settings. The process involves external stakeholders and real-world interactions to surface emerging patterns and guide adjustments.
Diary studies
Participants document their daily activities, experiences, behaviors, or reflections over a period of time using a self-directed method such as a written diary or log, a diary app, or creative prompts and tools (e.g. camera, collage materials). The team later reviews these self-recorded materials to understand the participants' context, behaviors, and perspectives.
Error Analysis
A method where user errors are systematically identified, categorized, and analyzed to uncover root causes and inform targeted improvements to the system. It involves observing or recording user interactions to gather error data.
Eyetracking
A device tracks and records the eye movements of participants as they interact with a product, interface, or environment. The data reveals where and how long they focus their attention during tasks.
Field Trips
Participants visit a physical site to directly observe and learn about a place, issue, or proposed development. The activity may include opportunities for participants to provide input or receive information on-site.
Guided Tour
A person being designed for leads the team through their environment, such as their home or workplace. The team observes, asks questions, and records details about the person’s routines, habits, and surroundings to gather insights.
Hierarchical Task Analysis
Analysts systematically deconstruct how external users perform tasks in a system, breaking down each step, the actions, tools, and thought processes involved. The goal is to understand and optimize user workflows based on observed behavior.
Immersion
Team members spend extended time, sometimes living or working on-site, sometimes overnight, alongside the people they're designing for, in their real-world setting, observing and recording their behaviors, decisions, and surroundings to build empathy and surface tacit knowledge.
Mystery Shopper
Anonymous evaluators act as typical customers, performing tasks such as making purchases or asking questions. They then provide detailed reports or feedback based on their firsthand experiences and observations.
Non-Participant Observation
A researcher systematically watches and records the behavior of people in a setting without participating, often moving from broad to focused observations. It involves external participants and produces new data about their actions and interactions.
Peers Observing Peers
A person from the community being designed for is given tools to observe and document their peers' perspectives. The design team then collects these observations and interviews the observer to gather additional insights about the process and findings.
Positive Deviance
A facilitator collaborates with a community to identify successful individuals or groups facing the same challenges, study their uncommon but effective practices, and co-design initiatives based on these insights. The process includes participatory evaluation to assess effectiveness.
Appreciative Inquiry
A group process where participants collectively identify and examine what is functioning well in a system, then co-create a vision and plan for the future based on those strengths through a structured sequence of stages.
Appreciative Storytelling
Participants interview one another to gather positive stories about their experiences or contributions to a shared initiative. The group then reflects on these stories together and documents the insights. The activity involves external stakeholders sharing their perspectives in a structured, facilitated setting.
Asset Mapping
A collaborative process where participants identify and categorize existing assets within a community, organization, or network. It involves gathering input from external stakeholders to map resources such as skills, groups, institutions, physical assets, exchanges, and cultural elements.
Circle Of Coherence
Participants physically place themselves within a large, marked circle representing network dynamics (e.g., individual vs. collective focus, similarities vs. differences) to reflect on their current state. A facilitator then leads a discussion based on these positions to analyze patterns and identify potential interventions.
Citizen Juries
A representative group of citizens is convened, briefed by experts, and guided through multi-day deliberation to examine a community-relevant issue, producing a collective report with recommendations or informed opinions.
Co-Creation
A facilitated session, or an ongoing working relationship, where the team and the people they're designing for, such as customers, partners, or suppliers, jointly generate, develop, and refine a solution together through collaborative activities.
Community-Led Evaluation
Community members, especially those affected by an intervention, directly conduct or co-conduct the evaluation by gathering, analyzing, interpreting, and reporting data. This involves external participants in the full evaluation process.
Concept Mapping
A group of people generates, rates, and groups statements about a topic, then uses software to create a visual map of how those ideas cluster and relate. A facilitator guides the group in interpreting the resulting patterns to understand shared values or priorities.
Consensus Conference
A structured public forum where a citizen panel prepares questions, selects experts, and engages in dialogue with them to produce a joint position statement on an issue or proposal. It involves external participants, including laypeople and experts, in a democratic, transparent process.
Expert Panel
A structured session where a group of external experts with specialized knowledge are brought together to discuss, debate, and provide recommendations on a specific issue or proposal. The process may occur in person or remotely, and the experts' input is used to inform decisions or resolve complex or contentious matters.
Facilitated Dialogue On Assumptions
A facilitator leads external stakeholders through a structured, reflective group discussion where participants articulate, question, and challenge their own and each other's assumptions, beliefs, or mental models, including how they think their product or approach works, to arrive at a new or refined shared understanding.
Fishbowl Technique
A facilitated dialogue where a small group discusses a topic in an inner circle while a larger group observes from an outer circle. Observers can temporarily join the inner circle, often by replacing a participant, to contribute perspectives and enable large-group participation in a controlled, dynamic format.
Focus Group
A moderator guides a small group of people, roughly 3 to 12, through a structured discussion, often with specific topics or exercises, to surface their perspectives, concerns, or preferences on a given subject. Sessions are typically recorded and rely on open-ended questions to probe issues in depth.
Human Spectrogram
Participants physically position themselves along a spectrum line to indicate their stance on a given statement, from strong agreement to strong disagreement. A facilitator interviews individuals along the line to explore their reasoning, and participants may adjust their positions as the discussion evolves.
Institutional History
A group of external stakeholders collaboratively builds a timeline and narrative of institutional changes and innovations through interviews and facilitated write-shops. The process involves analyzing roles, relationships, and triggers of success or failure, then synthesizing lessons to diagnose the broader system of innovation and improve future performance.
Most Significant Change
Participants and field staff gather personal stories of change from the people affected by a product or initiative. These stories are then reviewed in a structured, hierarchical process where groups select the most significant accounts, discuss their reasons for selection, and share the results to clarify what different stakeholders value and why.
Net-Mapping
A participatory mapping exercise where external stakeholders collectively identify actors in a network, draw their relationships, represent influence levels with physical towers, and assign goals to each actor. The process produces a visual map and qualitative data about perceived power and influence.
Open Space
A facilitator gathers a diverse group of external stakeholders in a circle and invites them to propose discussion topics they care about. Participants self-organize into small groups to explore these topics, with the freedom to move between sessions. The workshop concludes with a shared reflection where participants report key learnings and findings from the parallel discussions.
ORID
A facilitator leads a group through a four-stage conversation: sharing objective facts, reflecting on emotional responses, interpreting issues or challenges, and making decisions. The method is used to clarify differences or reach agreement among participants.
Outcome Mapping
A structured approach that begins by mapping the system of actors and their relationships, then defines a theory of change with specific boundary partners and desired behavioral outcomes. It monitors and evaluates these outcomes through journals and other tools, while also tracking the team's own practices to support adaptive learning.
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) / Participatory Learning for Action (PLA)
A facilitated process where local stakeholders collectively analyze their situation, develop shared insights, and generate an information base for planning. It involves group activities, interviews, and visualization tools, with external facilitators contributing skills and external information.
Polls
Participants vote on predefined options using physical or digital tools (e.g., stickers, hand-raising, or online platforms) to express preferences, gauge opinions, or make decisions when consensus is not achievable through discussion.
Product Box
Participants create a mock product box, emphasizing the features they consider most important. This activity involves external people directly sharing their preferences about the product.
Public Consultations
A series of public meetings where community members or stakeholders are invited to share concerns and provide feedback on proposed options or plans. The activity involves direct interaction with external participants to gather their perspectives.
Rapid Outcome Assessment
A specific, named methodology (developed by ODI's RAPID programme) for assessing and mapping how a project's actions contributed to a change in policy or the policy environment. It draws on Outcome Mapping (tracking key actors the project influences), Episode Studies (tracing backward from a policy change to its causes), and Most Significant Change (prioritizing which changes matter). It has three stages: preparation (document review and informal conversations to draft the project's history and intended changes), a stakeholder workshop that maps actors' behavioral changes onto a timeline alongside project activities and external events, and a follow-up stage that triangulates and refines the resulting causal narrative through further interviews.
Rich Picture
A group of people collaboratively creates a visual diagram that captures the key elements, relationships, and contextual factors of a complex situation. The participants then extract the primary challenges from this shared representation.
Ritual Dissent
A spokesperson presents ideas to a group without interruption, then turns away to listen in silence while the group either critiques the ideas or proposes alternatives. The spokesperson records feedback and later summarizes what they learned.
Six Thinking Hats
Participants in a group discussion take on six distinct thinking roles one at a time to examine a decision or problem from multiple perspectives, switching roles to ensure all viewpoints are addressed.
Sketch Mapping
Participants draw maps to visually represent their understanding of a geographically defined issue, such as resource ownership, degradation, or availability. Evaluators then analyze these maps to uncover spatial patterns, disparities, or specific impacts.
Social Mapping
Participants collaboratively create a map of a defined area, then rank households by relative socio-economic wellbeing using predefined indicators. The process involves coding households with symbols or colors based on consensus, and the resulting map is used to track changes over time and assess project impacts on different social groups.
Speed Boat
A facilitated session where a small group identifies and discusses obstacles (anchors) and accelerators (engines) affecting a desired change or goal, typically capturing them on a shared visual display. The process is designed to surface pain points or barriers, often with a neutral facilitator, and may include evaluating the significance of each factor to guide prioritization.
Storyboard Performance
A team creates a sequence of simple visual frames to map out key moments of their concept, then performs the sequence for their colleagues to gather feedback.
Trendline
Participants collaboratively create a time-based graph to map their perceptions of changes in a specific parameter, such as resource availability or income. They discuss and annotate the reasons for observed trends, then consolidate sub-group results into a shared diagram.
Wheel Of Multiple Perspectives
Participants adopt the viewpoints of different stakeholders by speaking from assigned roles, rotating through multiple rounds to build a comprehensive set of perspectives on an issue. The group then reviews and discusses the collected viewpoints to extract insights for action.
World Cafe
A facilitated large-group dialogue method where participants discuss a shared topic in small, rotating groups at café-style tables. A table host summarizes prior discussions for new arrivals, and the session concludes with a large-group discussion to synthesize, harvest, and visually share insights, patterns, and actionable ideas from the conversations.
Cold Calling
Researchers reach out to external individuals or organizations with no prior connection to assess their interest in a product, service, or collaboration. The process involves preparing and refining a pitch during live calls to gather direct feedback or secure meetings.
Convergent Interviewing
A series of unstructured interviews are conducted with a deliberately diverse group of people. The interviewer compares summaries of these interviews to identify common themes, then develops follow-up questions to test agreements, disagreements, or exceptions in those themes.
Creating an Experience Map
The team or participants gather firsthand accounts from real users about their interactions with a service, documenting actions, thoughts, and feelings at each step. These are then organized into a visual timeline showing stages, actions, emotions, and touchpoints, either collaboratively or by ordering event cards chronologically. The map is refined to reflect the consolidated user experience.
Customer / In-Depth Interview
A researcher holds one-on-one, or occasionally small-group, conversations with people outside the team, such as customers or users, using open-ended questions and follow-up probing to understand their pain points, needs, behaviors, and experiences in depth.
Customer Problem-Discovery Interview
A practitioner selects people from a target audience and conducts structured conversations with them, focusing on their past experiences to uncover whether they face a specific problem, how they currently address it, and what would motivate them to switch solutions.
Design Research Interview
A researcher conducts a structured conversation with a person being designed for, asking prepared questions and recording their exact responses, body language, and surrounding context to gather insights.
Expert / Key-Informant Interview
A researcher conducts loosely structured, in-depth interviews with a small group of internal or external experts or stakeholders, selected for their first-hand knowledge, to gather insight on feasibility, viability, or strategic direction, and to build alignment among decision-makers.
Expert Advice
External experts are engaged in a structured conversation to answer specific questions or provide context and technical advice about the project area, drawing on their domain or organizational perspective.
Find the Watering Hole
The practitioner visits places where potential customers naturally congregate, such as events or social settings, and holds informal conversations with them to test assumptions about their needs or challenges.
Key Informant Attribution
Evaluators interview key informants, such as team members or users, to assess whether they attribute specific outcomes to the product or initiative, the degree of that attribution, and the reasons behind it. The method relies on structured questioning to test the underlying causal theory against the perspectives of those directly involved or affected.
Key Informant Counterfactual Judgment
Experts with knowledge of the initiative or community are consulted to provide their predictions about what would have happened without the product or change. The activity involves structured questioning of these external individuals to gather their informed opinions.
Participatory Visual Elicitation
External participants are given creative materials, such as drawing or collage pieces, and asked to build a tangible visual representation of their experience, ideas, or priorities, then explain it to the team as a way of capturing their perspective directly.
Partner And Supplier Interview
The team conducts structured conversations with potential partners or suppliers to assess the feasibility, cost, and risk of outsourcing or collaborating on critical activities, evaluating both business and technical compatibility.
Personal Inventory
Participants share and discuss personal items they use regularly. The items are analyzed to uncover insights about their daily habits, preferences, and lifestyle.
Photojournal
Participants take photos based on a given prompt to document their daily life, context, or experiences. The design team reviews these photos, prepares questions, and then discusses the images with the participant to explore their meaning, emotions, and omissions.
Picnic in the Graveyard
The team identifies and studies past failed products, ideas, or startups in their field, reaching out to individuals or organizations behind them (e.g., founders, customers) to collect detailed accounts of what went wrong and why. They also review archived, published, or accessible materials (e.g., products, features) about these failures to extract additional insights.
Pop-Up Research
Researchers set up temporarily in public or semi-public spaces frequented by the target users, recruit participants on the spot, and conduct brief interviews or usability tests to gather immediate feedback or observations from real users.
Projective Techniques
Participants respond to indirect prompts like images, incomplete sentences, or creative tasks to reveal their thoughts or experiences. The prompts are used during interviews or group sessions to gather qualitative insights.
Qualitative Impact Protocol (QuIP)
This method conducts interviews and focus groups with people affected by an intervention, using a double-blindfolded approach to avoid bias. It then codes and analyzes their narrative responses to map causal pathways linking drivers to outcomes, producing visualizations of these relationships.
Resource Flow
This is an interview-based exercise where the team and the person being studied map all assets (e.g., money, livestock, labor) entering and leaving a household. They then discuss and rank these to uncover financial patterns, priorities, and constraints.
Setting Up Co-Designers to Facilitate Interviews
A design team collaborates with community members (co-designers) to prepare them to independently conduct interviews within their own communities. The team develops a facilitation guide, refines it with co-designer feedback, supports their recruitment and logistics, and holds weekly debriefs to analyze findings and refine the guide.
Stories of Change
External participants share specific, structured narratives about events that demonstrate the change brought about by a product or initiative. These stories are collected and presented to highlight what is valued in the observed outcomes.
The Five Whys
An interviewer repeatedly asks 'why' to a participant's answers during a conversation, typically five times, to explore the underlying motivations and beliefs behind their actions. The process involves recording responses and identifying moments of deeper insight.
404 Test
A link to a non-existent feature is added to a product or interface, and user clicks on the link are tracked to assess demand or interest in that feature.
Blog
A public blog is created to share the product's purpose and problem. The team interacts with external readers through their comments and social shares to gather feedback.
Brochure
A brochure or mockup of a sales brochure is created to present a value proposition, then distributed or presented in real-world settings to external people or potential customers. Feedback is gathered directly from those who receive it, optionally through follow-up interviews, to test reactions and the value proposition.
Classified Posting
A minimal classified advertisement is posted in target audience forums or platforms to gauge interest, solicit feedback, or drive sign-ups or purchases. The ad typically includes a headline, image, and basic details to attract responses from external participants.
Community Fairs
A public event is held in a local community, featuring activities designed to attract a diverse audience. The event provides information about a project or issue, raises awareness, and may include structured activities to gather feedback, collect contact details, or obtain signatories for proposals.
Crowdsourcing
The team publicly requests contributions or solutions from a large, undefined group of external people, typically through online communities or platforms. The responses are gathered and used to inform the project.
Customer Feedback
Users submit their responses through a feedback mechanism such as a link, button, form, or email. The responses are self-selected and may be open-ended or close-ended.
Data Sheet
A document, often one page, is created to outline a product's key features, specifications, value proposition, key benefits, and problem-solving approach. This document is then shared with external partners, stakeholders, or potential customers to gather their reactions and feedback, connecting the product's attributes to the needs and pain points of the target audience.
Displays And Exhibits
Visual, audio, or physical representations of issues or proposals are presented to the public in events or forums. These displays often include interactive elements, such as feedback sheets or idea boards, to gather opinions and input from attendees.
Dry Wallet
A simulated purchase flow, such as a checkout or pricing page, is presented to external users. The flow ends with a message indicating the product is unavailable or not yet ready, allowing users to signal intent to pay through their clicks without actual billing.
Electronic Democracy
People use digital channels such as websites, email, or online voting to submit their views on proposals or issues. These inputs are compiled and presented to decision-makers to reflect community attitudes and inform planning.
Email Campaign
A method where targeted emails are sent to external recipients, and their engagement is measured through open and click rates to gauge interest.
Feature Stub
A non-functional placeholder for a planned feature is added to an existing product. When external users interact with it, they are notified the feature is not yet available, interactions are tracked to measure interest, and they may be asked to provide feedback through a brief survey.
Impostor Judo
The team repackages or presents an existing competitor's product, website, or mockup as their own, then gathers feedback, clicks, or engagement metrics from external users to test interest, observe interactions, or validate a hypothesis.
Landing Page
A standalone web page is created to present a value proposition or describe an offering, featuring a call-to-action (e.g., 'Sign Up' or 'Buy'). External traffic is directed to the page, and user actions (e.g., clicks, sign-ups, or payments) are tracked to gauge interest or demand.
Link Tracking
Links to specific resources are embedded in newsletters or posts, and the click-through rate is measured to gauge external interest. The activity involves external participants interacting with the links.
Message Testing
The team sends messages to external prospects, presenting a problem or solution, and measures their engagement or positive reply rate to validate assumptions about market interest or pain points.
Mock Sale
A simulated sales page or interface is shown to potential customers, displaying a price and a purchase option. When a customer attempts to buy, they are informed the product is not yet available, allowing the team to observe real purchasing intent without processing payments.
Online Ad Test
A small-scale online advertising campaign presents a value proposition or offer to external users and directs them to a landing or sign-up page. Click-through rates, landing-page engagement, and conversions are measured to gauge interest and compare messaging or targeting variations.
Postcards
Postcards are sent to external stakeholders to gather brief feedback, solicit reactions to findings, or invite participation in evaluation activities. They are designed to be simple, visually engaging, and require minimal effort from recipients.
Product Demo Video
A recorded video demonstrating a product's functionality in a real-life scenario, distributed to external audiences (e.g., via a landing page or marketing campaign) to measure interest or demand through engagement metrics such as views, replays, shares, comments, or signups.
Social Media Campaign
The team publishes organic social media posts to test messaging and value propositions, then observes and measures external audience engagement over time.
Spoof Landing Pages
Create one or more landing pages for a fictional product, drive external traffic to them, and track visitor engagement (e.g., clicks on non-functional purchase buttons) to gauge interest and test messaging.
Unusual Events Reporting
External stakeholders or the public submit reports of unusual events or incidents through forms, which are then collected and filed by a designated recipient. The process can be facilitated via physical or online forms.
A/B Testing
External users are randomly assigned to two or more versions of a design, page, or element, and their behavior is measured against a predefined metric to identify which version performs best, often with statistical significance determining the outcome.
Agree to Switch
Potential customers are asked to commit to switching to a new solution and perform switching actions, such as using a migration tool or importing data from existing systems, to test the strength of the value proposition.
Bare Bones MVP
A minimal but functional prototype with multiple key features is created and offered to external customers to validate demand, feature viability, or willingness to pay. The prototype is built using accessible tools and tested directly with the target audience.
Collect Pre-Orders
A method where a product is offered for sale before it is fully developed, using a simple online page or campaign to accept pre-orders or simulated purchase attempts from potential customers. This measures real purchasing intent or willingness to pay, either by processing actual payments as a commitment signal or by observing reactions when customers attempt to buy a product that is not yet available.
Crowdfunding
A campaign is created on a crowdfunding platform to present a product or service idea to external customers, who can pledge financial support at varying levels in exchange for rewards. The responses (pledges, backing, or conversions) provide direct evidence of market demand and interest before the product is fully built.
Dogfooding
Pre-release versions of a product are deployed for internal use, and the resulting feedback, bug reports, and usage data are collected to inform improvements.
Event
Organize a live event (e.g., meetup, conference, or webinar) centered on addressing a customer problem. The event's attendance, engagement, and willingness to pay provide direct evidence of customer interest and desirability.
High Hurdle
Potential customers are asked to complete a deliberately difficult or time-consuming task, such as a long survey or an approval process, to demonstrate their interest. The effort required serves as a measure of their genuine desire for the product or service.
Incentivized Referral Program
The team targets existing customers likely to advocate for the product, provides them with referral codes, and tracks how often these codes are shared, clicked, and converted into sign-ups. Incentives are offered to both the advocate and the referred person to encourage participation.
Letter of Intent
Prospects, external customers, or partners are presented with a non-binding document outlining a value proposition or specified conditions and asked to sign it. The signed document serves as external evidence of their intent to purchase, collaborate, or commit, validating assumptions about demand and willingness to engage without requiring a full, binding contract.
Live Prototyping
A full-scale, sustained implementation of a solution in real-world conditions, using all required staff, resources, and logistics. The team observes how the solution performs as a complete system, gathers data on its desirability, viability, and feasibility, and makes real-time adjustments based on feedback from the people being designed for.
Mashup
A rapid prototyping technique where an early product is assembled by integrating existing third-party tools, services, or frameworks. The resulting prototype is then tested with external users or participants to validate assumptions about feasibility, viability, desirability, or the value proposition without developing a custom product.
Multivariate Testing
A live experiment where multiple elements on a webpage are varied simultaneously to identify the combination that best achieves a predefined goal. It involves exposing external users to different versions and measuring their behavior to determine the most effective configuration.
Offer a Sample
Potential customers are provided with a free sample of a product to experience a portion of its value. Their engagement and feedback are then observed to assess demand for the full product.
One Night Stand
A temporary, fully functional version of a service is deployed in a narrow geographic area and short timeframe, under real-world conditions. It involves external participants interacting with the service to test demand, use cases, and feasibility.
Physical Before Digital
A physical, analog version of the product is created and sold to external customers to validate the value of its content, abstracted from digital form or interactivity. This involves producing a simple, printable version and observing customer acquisition, activation, and feedback.
Pop-Up Store
A temporary physical retail space is created to offer a product or service to real customers. The team observes whether customers purchase or engage with the offering and gathers their direct feedback.
Provincial (Local Before Global)
A scaled-down version of the intended product, with only its core features, is deployed to a small segment of the target market. The team observes how this subset interacts with the product to assess its feasibility, viability, and desirability before full-scale launch.
Randomised Controlled Trial
A method where participants are randomly assigned to receive a treatment or not, then outcomes are measured and compared between the groups to estimate the treatment's effect. It involves external participants and systematic data collection to isolate causal impact.
Referral Willingness Test
A program where the team targets satisfied existing customers and asks them to invite others to use the product or service. The team then observes whether these customers are willing to refer it, indicating desirability.
Rent The Resources
The team temporarily acquires the required resources, such as tools, equipment, or space, through borrowing or renting to test their product. This allows them to assess the idea without making a large upfront investment.
Sell the Future
The team offers a planned but unbuilt feature to external customers, prioritizing its development if the customer commits to paying for it upfront. This involves direct interaction with customers to gauge demand and willingness to pay.
Single-Feature MVP
A minimal, functional version of a product with only one core feature is built and released to real or external users. The team observes how these users interact with it, including engagement, behavior, and satisfaction, to validate whether the feature actually solves their problem.
Takeaway Test
A feature or function is deliberately removed or disabled for existing customers without notification. The team monitors customer reactions to determine if the feature is valued or can be safely removed.
Concierge
A human or the team manually delivers the core value of a product or service to external or early customers, who know the process is manual. The team observes customer responses to learn, refine the offering, and gather feedback before automating it.
Extreme Programming Spike
A small, disposable code prototype is created to verify the feasibility of a specific technical assumption. The process involves writing minimal code solely to test whether a solution is possible, with no expectation of reusing the implementation.
Pinocchio
A non-functional version of a product is created, and the team imagines it as functional to explore potential usage scenarios and interactions.
Process Simulation
A model is built to replicate the behavior of a real or proposed system, and different scenarios are run through it to observe their effects on performance metrics such as time, cost, or resource use.
Product Simulation
Digital models of a product are created and tested in a virtual environment to assess its features and performance. This involves using specialized software to simulate how the product behaves under various conditions.
Role Play
Team members perform a simulated scenario, either scripted or unscripted, to act out user interactions with an idea, experience, or product, often internally first. The simulation may include assigned roles with defined objectives, and can be followed by reflection and structured feedback.
Wizard of Oz
A simulated version of a product or service is presented to users as if it were fully functional or automated. A human operator manually performs the underlying tasks to deliver the expected outputs, while users interact with the system unaware of the manual intervention. The team observes user reactions and feedback to gather evidence.
Brand-Price Trade-Off
Participants repeatedly select among competing products and new offerings at varying prices in a structured survey. The method measures how price changes and advertising exposure affect demand, market share, and cannibalization of existing products.
Brand-Specific Conjoint
External respondents evaluate and choose among product profiles that differ by brand, features, and price. Their selections are statistically analyzed to determine the relative importance of each attribute in their decision-making.
Buy a Feature
Participants allocate a limited budget to select features from a curated list, exposing their true preferences through their spending decisions. The activity involves external stakeholders and a structured game format.
Delphi Study
A structured, multi-round process where a facilitator gathers and synthesizes responses from a group of external experts or stakeholders to build consensus on a specific issue or decision. Each round involves summarizing feedback, refining questions, and redistributing it for further reflection, allowing participants to refine their views based on the group's input.
Desirability Studies
Participants are shown different visual design options and asked to link each to attributes from a fixed list. The method captures their associations to evaluate design appeal or fit.
Face-to-Face Questionnaires
An interviewer meets respondents in person, follows a pre-prepared script of questions, and records their answers. The interviewer can clarify questions or probe for more detail during the session.
Feature Placement Matrix
A survey-based method where external participants rank the importance of product features and provide price sensitivity inputs. The results are plotted on a matrix to categorize features into tiers (e.g., premium, add-ons, every tier, deprioritize) based on their perceived importance and willingness to pay.
Gabor-Granger Pricing Method
A survey-based technique where external respondents are shown a series of price points for a product and asked whether they would purchase it at each price. The sequence of prices adapts based on their responses to determine the highest price each individual is willing to pay. The aggregated data is then analyzed to estimate demand elasticity and identify price points that maximize revenue.
Generic Conjoint Analysis
Respondents evaluate multiple hypothetical product profiles, each combining different features and levels but excluding brand, and their choices are statistically analyzed to determine the relative importance of each feature and the value placed on specific levels, revealing trade-offs in their preferences.
Kano Model
A survey-based method where external participants or users answer paired questions about each potential feature to classify them into categories such as Must-Have, Performance, Attractive, or Indifferent. The results are analyzed to calculate satisfaction and dissatisfaction indices, which help prioritize features for development.
MaxDiff Analysis
Participants repeatedly choose the most and least preferred items from randomized sets of options. Their responses are analyzed to rank the items by relative preference, revealing which are most or least valued by the group.
Micro Surveys
Brief, open-ended questions are presented to users in the moment they perform a specific action on a website or via email. The questions target specific aspects of their experience and may prompt further feedback through chat or email.
Monadic Test
Participants evaluate a series of individual stimuli (such as product concepts or packaging) one at a time, answering a set of questions for each to assess their attitudes or ratings. The method involves presenting each stimulus in isolation to gather focused feedback.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Customers rate their likelihood to recommend the product on a 0-10 scale, are categorized as promoters, passives, or detractors, and the net score is derived by subtracting the detractor percentage from the promoter percentage. The process includes a follow-up question to capture the reasons behind the rating.
Polling Booth
Participants provide sensitive information anonymously through a polling booth, which ensures confidentiality and reduces social desirability bias. The method involves external individuals submitting responses in a structured, private manner.
Questionnaire
A structured set of written questions is distributed to a sample of people to gather specific information about their attitudes, preferences, or factual details. The same questions are asked of all respondents in a consistent format and order.
Structured Survey
A structured set of mostly closed-ended questions is distributed to a broader group of external people, by email, social media, in-product prompts, or similar channels, to quantify their attitudes, preferences, or behaviors and validate patterns observed in earlier, smaller-scale research.
Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter
Participants answer four questions about their price perceptions for a single product or service. Their responses are aggregated into cumulative frequency lines, whose intersections reveal an acceptable price range and specific price points (e.g., optimal, normal).
3D Print
A physical model is created and presented to external participants to gather their feedback on its form, function, and feasibility.
Card Sorting
Participants sort cards representing features or concepts into groups, exposing their mental models of how information should be organized or prioritized. The activity is performed with external users to reveal their understanding and preferences, with results analyzed for patterns.
Clickable Digital Prototype
A digital, interactive mockup of an app or service, with screens linked together to simulate real navigation, is built without writing code. External users interact with it to complete tasks, and their behavior and feedback are observed to assess usability and task completion.
Comprehension Test
Participants are briefly shown a written message, such as a value proposition, and then asked to restate it in their own words. The responses are compared to the original to assess whether the message was understood as intended.
Concept Testing
A researcher presents a simplified representation of a product or service idea to the people it is intended for, then gathers their feedback to determine if the concept meets their needs. It can be conducted with individuals or groups, in person or remotely.
First Click Testing
Participants are given a task and shown an interface, then observed to record their first click and the time taken. This involves external users interacting with a design to reveal navigation behavior.
Five Second Test
Participants are briefly exposed to a design or object for five seconds. After it is removed, they recall what stood out most and explain their impressions.
Hierarchical Card Sorting
A participant sorts labeled cards representing cases or phenomena into groups based on their most significant perceived differences, iteratively refining the groupings until a hierarchical structure emerges. The facilitator records the distinctions and their significance, and may later use the structure to ask evaluative questions about the sorted groups.
High-Fidelity Clickable Prototype
A high-fidelity, interactive mockup of a digital product is presented to external users, who attempt to use it while their interactions are observed to identify usability issues and validate the product's value.
In-Person Moderated Usability Testing
A facilitator watches external participants attempt predefined tasks with a product, service, or prototype, often asking them to think aloud, and may ask follow-up questions to probe observed behavior. Sessions are typically planned, executed, and analyzed using a standardized process to identify usability issues.
Lego Prototype
A physical product prototype is built using Lego bricks to represent its form and function. The prototype is then presented to external participants for feedback or co-creation, allowing for quick adjustments based on their input.
Life-Sized Prototype
A physical, life-sized model of a solution is constructed and used to observe how people interact with it in a real-world setting. This involves external participants engaging with the prototype to assess its physical or environmental fit.
Paper / Low-Fidelity Prototype
A low-fidelity, hand-made representation of an interface or physical solution, often paper, is built and manually simulated or shown to external users. Their interactions and reactions are observed or gathered to test navigation, flow, or overall fit before investing in a higher-fidelity version.
Participatory Prototyping
A design team works alongside community members (co-designers) to plan and carry out prototype testing. Co-designers help identify test participants, shape the testing approach, and conduct the sessions to gather feedback from people in their community.
Persona Journey Storyboard
A sequence of visual panels is produced to represent how a particular person would engage with a proposed solution across a timeline, and these panels are presented to external individuals to elicit feedback.
Pretend to Own
A person uses a non-functional replica of a product or service, such as a mock-up or dummy app, and integrates it into their daily routine to observe how it fits and whether they would actually use it. The method involves creating a simple, tangible representation and committing to interact with it as if it were real.
Remote Moderated Testing
A moderator guides participants through tasks in a live, remote session, observing their interactions with a product via video conferencing, screen-sharing, or remote-control tools. The participants are external users of the product.
Tree Testing
Participants complete tasks by navigating a hierarchical information structure to locate specific items. Their performance is measured to assess how easily the structure supports finding information.
Unmoderated Remote User Testing
Participants interact with a site, app, or prototype to complete predefined tasks or scenarios unmoderated and unsupervised. Their actions are recorded via video, screen capture, or specialized tools, which may capture metrics such as success rate, task time, and perceived ease of use. Test materials are distributed remotely, and participants are recruited through online platforms or relevant forums.
Usability Benchmarking
A structured usability study is run with multiple external participants, using fixed performance metrics to assess and compare the product's usability over time or against other products.
User Test Competing Products
External users test competing products, and their feedback is analyzed to identify strengths, weaknesses, and improvement opportunities for the team's own product.