At Mintos, our investors are our top priority. Gathering feedback and constantly improving our user experience and platform is our main objective. We gain important information about how actual investors engage with our prototype, or first model of a product, by conducting user tests. User tests assist us in developing a design that’s user-friendly, raising user satisfaction, and making choices that result in a better user experience all around.
This process specifically addresses the issue of whether investors can use the product as intended. Any stage of the product development cycle, from ideation to launch, can involve user testing. The early phases, when a product is developed with just enough features to be usable by early investors who can provide feedback, is when user testing is most helpful.
Product development at Mintos
Before we go through our user testing steps, we need some context and background on our overall product development process. Our process largely relies on the double diamond model, a visual tool that takes a structured design approach to tackling challenges in four phases. However, our procedure isn’t restricted to this one model, and we also utilize other approaches. The main idea is to keep repeating steps with small improved changes and get real user feedback as quickly as possible. The double diamond helps guide teams through the stages of problem identification, exploration, and solution development. The name “double diamond” refers to the two distinct phases of the process, each represented by a diamond-shaped diagram. The first diamond represents the problem, and the second diamond represents the solution.
Discover:
The goal of the first phase is to gain insights into the challenges at hand. During this stage, the focus is on understanding the problem and hypothesis. Hypotheses are important because they identify the problem we’re aiming to solve.
Define:
In this stage, the team analyzes the collected data to identify patterns, themes, and key problem areas. Additionally, it establishes the framework for product development.
Develop:
After defining the problem, the process moves into the development and solution phase. Here, the team generates a wide range of potential solutions and explores different ideas and possibilities. Brainstorming, sketching, and prototyping are commonly used during this stage.
Delivery:
The goal is to develop a solution that effectively addresses the identified problem and meets the needs of the users or stakeholders. Prototypes are refined and tested with users to gather feedback and ensure they meet the desired objectives.
The double diamond method is a flexible framework that encourages exploration. It emphasizes user-centric design, collaboration, and improvement throughout the problem-solving journey.
Our process for user testing
Step 1: Kick-off workshop
At Mintos, we start a project with a kick-off workshop with the main stakeholders. Included are those who initiated the project, as well as those who will work on the project and can bring relevant knowledge to the table. In the workshop, we identify the problem, hypothesis, and timeline, all included in the first phase of the double diamond method.
Step 2: Market analysis
Once the problem has been identified, we conduct market research to bring us closer to the solution. Market research involves gathering and analyzing information about a target market to understand various aspects that can impact business decisions and strategies. It helps us gain insights into customer preferences, market trends, competitor analysis, and overall market dynamics.
Step 3: Define the testing objectives
This step entails identifying patterns, themes, and key problem areas. Here, we clearly identify the framework for our user testing and the purpose of the user testing that we’ll be conducting. We’ll then determine what aspects of the project need to be evaluated, such as functionality, usability, performance, or specific user interactions.
The outcome of this step is to create test scenarios. As written above, test scenarios depend on what we want to test. Everything starts with the question or assumption about our prototype that we want to prove or disprove.
Step 4: Recruit participants
Selecting representative users who match the intended user profile depends on what we’re testing. When we have a list of potential users to invite, we send an invitation via email to the users for an interview or usability test. We give them relevant information, such as the purpose of the testing, the time commitment required, and any prerequisites or preparation they need to do beforehand.
Step 5: Testing
The test scenario that we create depends on what we want to test. Everything starts with the question or assumption about our prototype that we want to prove or disprove.
We normally conduct user tests in the format of a video call where the user interacts with the prototype. We often also use surveys whenever we feel that a survey would answer our questions. Sometimes it can be a quick one-question survey that pops up while users browse through pages on the Mintos platform, and sometimes it’s a longer survey that we send out to specific investors or the public.
Step 6: Analyze the results and make improvements
After we’ve conducted the user tests, we review and analyze the collected feedback and data to identify patterns, trends, and issues. We look for common usability problems, areas of confusion, or performance bottlenecks. We use these results to make improvements before we repeat the process. When we get unexpected insights about the prototype, we use the insights in making future decisions and updates.
Step 7: Repeat the process
We repeat this process, sometimes up to 5 times, until we get it right. Occasionally, the prototype isn’t simple to develop or doesn’t work the way we intend it to, and we need to revisit the solution. User interviews help us verify that our ideas are usable and intuitive to investors. We aim to gather feedback as fast and as much as possible. We then refine the prototype based on the results of each testing cycle.
Thank you to all of our investors who have participated in a survey or user test. Hearing from actual users who interact with our products allows us to identify usability issues, understand user preferences, and make informed improvements.
