Step 5 in the Design Thinking Process is Test

Being able to utilize testing in your design is a deal breaker in whether your designis going to stand out or look terrible. One of the best ways to gain insights in the design thinking process is to carry out some form of prototyping and testing how good the prototype is. This process can help bring one’s design ideas created come to life.

In stage 5, of the design thinking process there is a wide range of testing methods. These methods include human-computer interaction (HCI) and user-centered design (UCD) processes. What needs to be tested is the solutions that were created so that the designer can improve them. User feedback is extremely important to designers. The reason is because without it, the iterative design process will then fail. Therefore, the designer should seek feedback whenever possible, to use real people in your tests and to be able to analyze results to determine what is right and wrong in the design. By using this process, it helps you to have the ability to create a solution that is desirable to people, feasible in order to implement and viable for long term process (Interaction Design Foundation).

In the article, “Stage 5 in the Design Thinking Process: Test” it mentions how important it is for designers to conduct multiple tests throughout the design thinking process. That the tests go hand in hand with the prototypes. Since most of the time you will be testing your

prototypes with users. It is recommended to constantly create new prototypes, like starting with lower quality ones and then as the project progresses to create higher quality prototypes and then test them with users.

The reason why testing is so important is because when you test your ideas and prototypes with users, it helps you gain a greater understanding of your users, and it helps you be able to gain their feedback so you can improve your designs.

Therefore, utilizing the testing as one of the end stages in ones deign is a very important skill that designers should learn and use this feedback information from testing to understand and get feedback from their users. This knowledge of feedback can help designers bring their designs to a new level with this insightful information and the prototype itself to be able to be improved from the feedback given. Designers who don’t utilize testing won’t excel as much as those designers who do. Just because testing is extremely helpful to see how your users interact with the prototype.