Test it Yourself experiment

We're building a comprehensive knowledge library about product development as part of our mission. The library is for anyone looking to make better decisions — primarily decisions about product development. Whether you're an inventor, a product manager, or a Chief Product Officer, using the right research methods and experiments increases your chances of building the right things for the right audience. Today we'll introduce the Try it Yourself validation method.

When to Use This Experiment?

Every time you finish an iteration of your product. No product should go out to users before its own creators have used it themselves. This is often the fastest and cheapest way to uncover a flaw. The method is especially useful:

• When the team is solving a problem it knows firsthand.

• When a prototype exists that can be used on a real task.

• As a first check that a new feature or product actually works the way it should.

Basic Experiment Principles

The principle is simple: you use the product yourself, as if you were a user, on the user problem the product is meant to solve.

1. Pick a task. Choose a specific user problem that a user would try to solve with the product.

2. Use the product. Work through that task with real data on the prototype or finished product.

3. Note what snags. Record every point where things get stuck — or, conversely, where they work well. Write down bugs, problems, and the customer experience.

4. Decide. If you find yourself coming back to the product out of a genuine need around the problem it solves, that's a good signal.

5. Identify risks. This is the tester's entirely subjective judgment.

Real-World Experiment Example

Link to research: Basecamp: The origin story (Jason Fried)

37signals (today Basecamp) was founded in 1999 as a web design studio. As clients piled up, the company lacked a tool to communicate with them and keep projects together. The programs available handled Gantt charts, not collaboration.

So the team built its own simple tool just for itself and started actually running its projects in it — becoming its own first user.

When clients saw the tool, they wanted it too. In 2004 the team launched it to market as Basecamp. It had a hundred paying customers in the first month, and within a year it became the company's main source of revenue.

What Can Be Tested With This Experiment?

The method's main strength is that you experience the product's flaws — and its power — firsthand. It's good for validating:

• Feasibility: whether the task can be completed without workarounds; the signal is a smooth run-through.

• Desirability: whether the product solves a real pain; the signal is that you keep coming back to it yourself.

• Hidden obstacles: the steps and data without which it doesn't work; the signal is every point where you get stuck.

• The feel of using it: how pleasant or awkward the experience is; the signal is the moments of hesitation.

• Durability in practice: how the product holds up under everyday wear; the signal is failures during longer use.