Difficulty: Intermediate
Evidence strength
Relevant metrics: Jobs to be done ranking, Ranking needs, wants, desires, pains, Observations
Validates: Desirability
How: Investigate whether someone has already written a script or spreadsheet macro to solve the same problem or whether people are already following a checklist to prevent a category of errors. If manual implementations exist, there is a good chance you found a problem worth solving.
Why: Replacing workarounds rather than reengineering the experience from scratch lets users stay in the same mental model and thus entails less cognitive energy on changing their behavior into using your new solution.
This experiment is part of the Validation Patterns printed card deck
A collection of 60 product experiments that will validate your idea in a matter of days, not months. They are regularly used by product builders at companies like Google, Facebook, Dropbox, and Amazon.
Get your deck!Before the experiment
The first thing to do when planning any kind of test or experiment, is to figure out what you want to test. To make critical assumptions explicit, fill out an experiment sheet as you prepare your test. We created a sample sheet for you to get started. Download the Experiment Sheet.
After the experiment
To make sure you move forward, it is a good idea to systematically record your the insights you learned and what actions or decisions follow. We created a sample Learning Sheet, that will help you capture insights in the process of turning your product ideas successful. Download the Learning Sheet.
- Pretotyping Techniques for Building the Right Product by Alberto Savoia