The Importance Of User Feedback In Prototyping

Good engineering is wasted if you build the wrong product. The other day, I meet a founder. He says “Oh, you’re a CTO?” He hands me his phone. “Can you look at my app? I'm not sure my engineering team did a good job.“ I say “it’s hard to be sure just by clicking around, but the layout seems fine, the performance is snappy. What’s wrong with it?” “Well, people aren’t using it enough” Ah, the plot thickens. As it happens, the engineering team is doing fine. But they’re contractors. They’re given Figma mocks and do a pixel-perfect implementation. But how do those mocks get created? They’re just following an arbitrary roadmap based on the founder’s intuition. Having strong intuition for what your users want is helpful, but it never happens in a vacuum. Your job as a founder is to talk to your users. A lot. When you all you have is a wireframe, show your users and look for validation that it meets a real need they’d be willing to pay for. When you have a higher-fidelity prototype, do it again. Summarize, and share these summaries with your engineers. Everyone who touches execution should be reading them. Once you’ve launched, mine insights from your monitoring tools. Do new features improve these metrics? If early testers aren’t engaging, ask why. Always assume you’re missing some key insight about user needs and be relentless in squeezing this insight from your users. Until you have product-market fit, the most valuable thing your users have for you isn’t their money, its their honest feedback. Getting this feedback isn’t easy, but it’s the shortest path to iterating on your product effectively. If you’re not doing this, you’re likely wasting precious time and engineering resources. 10 hours of talking to users saves you 100s (1000s?) of hours building the wrong thing.

Is your design really UX, if you never talk to users? I've watched countless "UX designers" spend weeks perfecting pixels while never once speaking to the humans who'll actually use their products. After 15 years in UX design and front-end development, I've learned one harsh truth: 💡 Design without user feedback are just expensive art projects. The uncomfortable reality most designers don't want to admit: You can have: - The sleekest UI - The most innovative interactions - Perfect adherence to design systems - Award-winning visuals But if actual humans struggle to use your product, you've failed at your ONE job. Here's what many designers miss in our AI-obsessed industry: 1. User feedback isn't just "nice to have" - it's the difference between success and failure 2. Even the most sophisticated AI tools can't replace human experience and emotion 3. We design for humans with unique needs, not algorithms or machines 🛑 Stop doing these immediately: - Designing in isolation based on assumptions - Using only internal feedback from team members - Assuming AI knows user's behavior - Skipping usability testing to "save time" - Ignoring qualitative feedback because it's "subjective" ✅ Start doing these instead: - Run quick guerrilla testing sessions (even 5 users reveal most issues) - Build lightweight prototypes early to validate concepts - Schedule regular user interviews - Watch real users interact with your designs (their behavior and struggles reveal everything) The best UX designers aren't the ones with the prettiest Figma files - they're the ones who deeply understand their users' needs. --- PS: When was the last time you watched someone use your design? Follow me, John Balboa. I swear I'm friendly and I won't detach your components.

Four years of perfecting eco-friendly cups taught us… Customers are your greatest tool for getting it right. When we started SOFi Products , we spent months fine-tuning every detail… But real progress happened when we sent our first 100 prototypes to customers. ➡️ Some flagged potential leaks. ➡️ Others wanted a more secure lid. So, we built an interlocking lid mechanism that locked in place. Ensuring zero leaks and no spills. Each round of feedback brought new iterations. Each iteration got us closer to the perfect product. Until we finally nailed it, not alone, but with our customers. Real customer feedback helped us perfect our product. So if you are an entrepreneur launching a product, you should know: ✅ Perfection isn’t achieved in isolation -> it’s shaped by real users. ✅ Don’t assume -> test, listen, and refine. ✅ Every piece of feedback is a step toward a better product. In the end, the best innovations come from collaboration. The question is are you involving your customers in your product journey?

🔍 User Testing: Turning Insights into Innovation 💡 🔍 Introduction: User testing is the cornerstone of great design, providing real-world insights that help refine and improve products. It’s the process where assumptions meet reality, allowing designers to understand how users interact with their creations and where adjustments are needed. 📈 Case Study: The Power of User Feedback: Take the example of a popular mobile app that struggled with low user retention. After conducting thorough user testing, the design team discovered that the navigation was confusing for new users. By simplifying the user flow and making key features more accessible, they saw a dramatic increase in engagement and retention. This transformation highlights the impact that user testing can have on a product's success. 🔬 Methods of User Testing: There are several effective methods for gathering user feedback: A/B Testing: Compare two versions of a design to see which performs better. Usability Studies: Observe users as they interact with your product to identify pain points and areas for improvement. Surveys and Interviews: Collect direct feedback from users about their experiences and preferences. Remote Testing: Leverage online tools to gather feedback from a diverse user base, no matter where they are. ⚠️ Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them: One common mistake in user testing is not testing with a diverse group of users. Ensure you have a varied testing pool to get a holistic view of your product’s performance. Another pitfall is ignoring qualitative feedback in favor of quantitative data. Both types of feedback are crucial in understanding the full picture of user experience. 🔍 Conclusion: User testing isn’t just a step in the design process—it’s the heartbeat that keeps your product alive and thriving. By incorporating user feedback early and often, you can create designs that truly meet user needs and expectations. Don’t skip this critical process; it’s key to turning insights into innovative, user-friendly designs. Ready to take your design to the next level? Start prioritizing user testing today! #UserTesting #UXDesign #Innovation #UserExperience #DesignThinking

Bringing a new product to life can feel like setting sail into unknown waters. Each new user insight or piece of data can shift your course, guiding you toward the features and functionalities people truly value. This isn’t about just meeting a quota of user interviews or surveys - it’s about thoughtfully integrating important feedback every step of the way. Start with a Meaningful Launch: Begin with what some refer to as a “Minimal Desirable Product” (MDP). It’s not about stripping your offering down to the bare bones; rather, it’s about releasing something foundational yet appealing enough to encourage engagement. This ensures that the initial user responses you gather are based on a product with genuine potential, rather than on a stripped-down prototype users can’t connect with. Practical Approaches to Leveraging Feedback: - Observe User Behavior: Track how people navigate your platform. Are users breezing through the onboarding, or stumbling at certain steps? These patterns offer direct clues for improvement. - Seek Direct Input: Go beyond metrics and analytics—talk to your users. Interviews, open-ended surveys, and usability tests uncover the nuances of their experience you won’t find in raw data alone. - Refine and Iterate: Feedback is most powerful when it leads to meaningful action. Focus on enhancing what resonates, adjust or remove what doesn’t, and continuously refine your product to align with evolving expectations. - Maintain a Feedback Loop: Don’t treat user engagement as a one-off event. As trends and preferences shift, keep the lines of communication open. Regular feedback cycles help you stay relevant and resource-savvy. Statistics show that many startups fail simply because they build solutions that the market doesn’t actually need. Additionally, a surprising number of product features go unused - a waste of both time and budget. By rooting the development strategy in user feedback, we enhance satisfaction, save resources, and ensure that our product adapts alongside changing market demands. Admittedly, feedback isn’t always easy to hear, especially when it points out fundamental flaws. But every critique is a chance to refocus and deliver a product that’s not only more appealing but also more impactful. Rather than viewing negative comments as setbacks, see them as valuable road signs steering us toward better solutions. How do you incorporate user feedback into your product development process? #innovation #technology #future #management #startups

Testing with users isn’t just for the end. Or is it? I love Artiom Dashinsky’s take that vibe coding lets him validate ideas with real users much faster. Instead of running upfront research, he watches what people do, fixes issues on the fly, and ships new ideas directly into production.(https://lnkd.in/gc_U2w9Z) That kind of fast energy is exciting. It’s harder to do with big teams or strict systems that have a lot of compliance, but it points to a future where building and testing happen at the same time. I can see this leading to better products. But if the value of your product is hidden behind too many steps, users end up doing the hard work just to get through it. That might be okay for simple tools, but in more complex ones, you're turning users into lab mice. There's a middle ground where gut instinct and research work together. In our work with UX metrics in Helio, we see how helpful it is to get quick structured feedback from users while building. As ideas become more complex, it's even more important to know when to test and when to watch. My take is that user testing is useful at every stage of the design process, not just at the end. At each step in ideation, different types of user feedback help guide the work. In the early stage, attitudinal UX metrics help frame the challenge. As the concept develops, behavioral UX metrics help assess potential. Once the product is live, performance metrics help finalize choices. Even if you're moving fast with vibe coding, quick testing with users can help you make stronger design decisions along the way. I’m excited for what’s next. What’s your take- when is user research really needed? #productdesign #uxmetrics #productdiscovery #uxresearch

Building a prototype? Don’t skip validation. Even the most polished prototypes are just guesses without real user input. Testing early helps reveal what works—and what doesn’t—before you commit to full production. Our latest article shares how user research turned MilkMate’s prototype into a refined product with clear growth potential. By investing in research early, MilkMate didn’t just validate its design—it gained insights to enhance the product and lay out a strategy for long-term success. For seven tips on effective qualitative research, read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eZiR7EfP #ProductDevelopment #ProductDesign #DesignResearch

We don’t guess what users want we ask… That’s how we build digital products users rely on. Here’s how we make feedback the superpower behind great UX 👇  Step 1: Listen Deeply We run: ‣ 1:1 user interviews ‣ In-app surveys & session recordings ‣ Live usability testing  Step 2: Turn Chaos into Clarity We map raw feedback into themes: ‣ Usability issues (e.g. confusing navigation) ‣ Feature gaps (e.g. missing integrations) ‣ Friction points (e.g. slow checkout) Step 3: Design, Test, Validate We co-create with your team: ‣ Interactive prototypes (Figma) ‣ Real user validation before dev ‣ Accessibility & performance checks  Step 4: Ship Fast, Measure Faster Every improvement is: ✔️ A/B tested ✔️ Backed by analytics ✔️ Tied to measurable ROI Who This Helps ‣ SaaS & Tech → Reduce churn, improve onboarding ‣ Fintech → Simplify UX, boost adoption ‣ Healthcare → Design for clarity & trust ‣ Enterprise tools → Optimize internal workflows What You Get ✅ UX audit + feedback dashboard ✅ High-fidelity mockups & tested flows ✅ Real user insights + recordings ✅ Optional: Monthly UX performance reports 💡 User feedback is the fastest way to build what people love. Let’s make it part of your product growth strategy.