Usability testing is useful when you have a more thought through product and want to understand if it can truly help someone to achieve their goals. It’s worth repeating this exercise as you add on or change your product to ensure your vision meets a users’ reality.

The goal of both the Lean Startup and Design Thinking processes is to create ventures, products and services that keep the user at the center of the design and the business. By testing products with users at every stage and without interference or interruption we get as honest an insight as possible in to the experience of the problem and the solution. This reveals the greatest opportunities for meaningful interaction and the areas that ventures can disrupt existing experiences and markets.

Your user, your prototype and your five senses - use as many as possible, quietly, to gain insights into your user and how they are experiencing your problem and solution.