Advanced Concept Testing Approaches To Guide Product Development and Business Decisions
Summary
Key Insights
-
•
Concept testing is crucial before product development to validate market need but is underutilized in UX research.
-
•
Three types of concept testing address different questions: what a product does, why users should care, and how to communicate benefits.
-
•
Monadic, sequential, and trade-off testing methods offer varying cost, complexity, and discrimination power trade-offs.
-
•
Trade-off techniques like MaxDiff and conjoint analysis provide stronger discrimination and work well across cultures.
-
•
Combining qualitative research before and after quantitative concept testing improves hypothesis formulation and insights interpretation.
-
•
Including pricing in concept tests impacts user responses and business decisions significantly.
-
•
Brand presence in tests alters multiple metrics, requiring strategic decisions on branded vs. blind studies.
-
•
Online scrappy tests like A/B experiments capture behavior but lack insight into motivations and messaging impact.
-
•
Concept testing helps bridge the gap between UX discovery and business outcomes, strengthening business cases for UX research.
-
•
Expertise is needed to design and analyze complex trade-off tests; partnering with specialized researchers can maximize value.
Notable Quotes
"Concept testing is about testing ideas before development to confirm there is a real need for the product."
"UX researchers tend to focus on the experience after features are approved, missing the chance to validate earlier."
"People care not about product features but what these features do for them."
"Showing several concepts side by side and forcing choices yields better discrimination than rating scales."
"Qualitative research is excellent for discovering needs but poor at quantifying their scale or priority."
"If you have limited resources, start with a simple monadic test using low-cost survey tools."
"MaxDiff is great for prioritizing feature backlogs, especially when you have long lists to evaluate."
"Testing price effects requires careful design because user behavior can be irrational when prices are shown or hidden."
"No research method is perfect; use a mix and triangulate results depending on whether you want to predict or explain."
"When you start concept testing, be clear about what parts of the concept describe the what, the why, and the how."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"If you said are you creative, I’m gonna say hell yeah."
Dr. Karl JeffriesThe Science of Creativity for DesignOps
January 8, 2024
"You have to understand how the business actually makes money to align UX with it."
Amy MarquezINVEST: Discussion
June 15, 2018
"The weakest insight method might win simply because of the relationship to the power structure."
Steve Portigal Chris Chapo Kelly Goto Christian RohrerDiscussion
May 13, 2015
"Constant communication is necessary; agreement emails can’t be one-and-done."
Alicia MootyDesign Staffing Models
September 30, 2021
"With enough creativity and imagination, you can make anything interesting."
Ana Maria Montero Barrantes Aditi Dhar Michelle Kaplan Nate Osborne Matt LaurenceThe Authentic UX Talent Show
January 8, 2024
"Field usability testing showed stakeholders immediately how much value UX can add by catching issues before deployment."
Lada Gorlenko Sharbani Dhar Sébastien Malo Rob Mitzel Ivana Ng Michal Anne RogondinoTheme 1: Discussion
January 8, 2024
"We think about research as the magnetic field that attracts every part of the business into alignment around the customer."
Sofia QuinteroThe Product Philosophy Behind EnjoyHQ
March 10, 2021
"People don’t actually hate innovation; they like their jobs and feel threatened by change."
Laura KleinUnique challenges of innovation in enterprises
April 23, 2020
"You’ve got to take control of the backlog and position your team as value-driven, not just servicing individual teams."
Andrew MichaelBuilding a Product Insights Team
March 10, 2022
