Tests, Tests, and More Tests

Both of these articles focus on business strategy for new technologies, one relates to mobile and the other to disruptive technologies. Working for a tech company I have some first hand experience with these issues. Not too long ago the company I work for was developing a mobile app for a major American retail company (sorry for being vague but I'm technically not allowed to say much more than that), and I was involved in the user testing. Every 2 weeks the team would bring in two in house people and two external people to do the same test. The basic process is you receive a set of instructions and talk through everything you're doing in the app while being recorded (both what you are doing on the phone as well as your voice). For example the instruction might be "Go to xxJustine129's profile and follow her account," or "add a post to your own account and tag Beanies2go," and you talk through your process of completing that step. Our team did about 20 user tests at different stages of the app, and constantly tweaked their design depending on what worked in the tests and what didn't. When talking to the team who created this app, they all talked about how most companies when designing an app don't do user testing. It's either not in their budget, or they don't have the time, or don't think its worth it. I thought 20 was a pretty small number of user tests but apparently thats huge (especially for a 16 week project).
User testing is a huge part of developing any application/disruptive technology/advertisement. And there's a big difference between a focus group and user testing. This article talks about the importance of user testing in any situation and the best steps to make sure you're getting the most out of your tests. Even with how simple this sounds, tons of companies are still reluctant to engage in this practice. In the case of the app my company was involved in, the major retailer was incredibly surprised about our wanting to do user testing, and at first didn't understand why we needed it. They were reluctant because some of the external people our team wanted to bring in were not their usual customer base. However, our team explained that these people were big social media influencers and were important in knowing what people would or would not want in an app of this kind. Just a real life example of big companies being reluctant to look outside of their usual user base.