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PRODUCT DESIGN TIPS: VALIDATION

We looked at ideation in the last episode and need to look at validation in this episode. As simple as it sounds, it is a way you validate your idea. How will it be perceived by your target market/audience? Will it be accepted or rejected? Is there a thing that fits to only you? We may say it is about sharing it with people to know how they perceive it and get feedback to make it better or even drop it to spring up another idea.
Sometimes, an idea may be entirely new — trying to introduce what does not exist in the market. It could be an effort to make a product or service better. It could be in a bid to make some processes easier for users. It could even be to prove possibility of an impossibility. What you need to have in mind always is -a solution and how to arrive at it.
At validation stage of a product or service, you test and validate your idea prior to launching your product/service. Your idea at this stage is exposed to an audience before the final release. It may lead you to designing a product/service that will be acceptable and achieving its purpose. When validating an idea, you could do face-to-face interaction, discussing it with people around you to have their views and feedback. It could go down to having an online presence to reach a virtual and wider audience, and many more channels at your disposal. The aim is to reach as much audience and to get as much feedback as possible.
One may ask, why do I have to do this? Often, validation saves you time and money in the product design cycle. You do not have to waste precious time and money building a product that is all your thoughts and having it rejected on launch. Investing time and money in what will not sell could be depressing. With feedback about your idea, you tend to improve on the product even before launch. Validation sometimes involve some prototyping of a product or offering a free service in order to know how potential customers feel about it. Their recommendations at this stage is a MUST HAVE. It exposes your product/service to the market. Validation helps you avoid creating what people wouldn’t want to have.
Having come up with your idea, you may want to consider the following which to validate it.
·         Interview: hold interviews with your potential buyers about the product. These interviews can also start with your immediate network of people — colleagues, friends, relatives, neighbors. You would also want to interview industry experts to know their thoughts about your product/service. And while interviewing, your potential buyers would be interested more on value proposition — what is in it for them? How quickly does it solve their problem? What advantages does it have over existing solutions? These are questions you need to have prepare answers for.
·         Leverage on competition: Someone may have worked on similar idea with yours. Working on something someone has spent time and money to develop might not need you to repeat same efforts. Your focus will now be on improving on what exists and that is where your validation should focus on.
·         Prototyping: To validate your idea on a product, you may want to build a prototype for people to physically see and appreciate your idea. More like thinking out loud. Discussing your idea may likely not give your potential customers a real feel of what your product/service is like. Building a prototype will help explain a lot without you having to talk much and saves you time and money launching the product.
·         Sell Before You Build: I read on Pat Flynn’s blog about selling before you build. He argued that having an interest list through a landing page is a good idea knowing how much people like your idea. However, people may agree to like your idea but at the point of paying for your product, you may experience some retractions. So in validating your idea, have people want to pay for your product/service, especially when prototyping is involved. You may want to try pre-order at some point if the product is a fit for that.
·         Fine Tune and Rebuild: When feedbacks come in, review and fine tune your idea. But have in mind you may likely have a list of recommendations that is inexhaustible and impossible to implement all at once. Remember your product is that which may out live you and improvement can come in bits. Review and prioritize based on what solution you are providing. Enhancements may even be those parts that could help introduce new versions of your product and fetch you more revenue in the long run.
Finally, product validation does not guarantee your product selling but it is a way of confirming your idea meeting the need of your target market.
In the next episode, we will be discussing Deployment of your product.

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