Test and Iterate Your Startup UI/UX Design Effectively

When companies aim for breakthrough innovations, they often tread beyond technology to reconsider their business models. A great example of this is Sony’s development of the Walkman audio player which established the market for portable music devices. However, the crux is that Apple displaced it in the late 2000s by bringing a fresh, increasingly user-friendly business model. The model included a new, software-based music delivery channel — iTunes.

Similarly, Kodak dominated the photography market for decades. But, they failed to embrace the business model needed to support digital photography. Ultimately, Kodak had to cede that market to companies like Canon and Nikon.

Companies like Sony and Apple illustrate how innovative design can disrupt markets. But, their success did not depend simply on good design. It was also based on understanding evolving user behaviors and preferences.

Startups today must learn from these examples. They must recognize that acknowledging user needs is vital for creating successful products that redefine the market. This is especially true for startups that make digital products.

For these organizations, the way that they design their digital products is directly tied to how much success they’ll obtain:

• A startup with a digital product that has a user-centered User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design = A startup with a high chance of success
• A startup with a digital product that has poor UI/UX design that does not consider users’ needs = A startup with a low chance of success

That’s why, startups must continuously test and refine their digital products’ UI/UX designs based on user feedback. This iterative approach fosters a culture of continuous improvement. It enables startups to swiftly adapt their products in a competitive and ever-evolving landscape. As they refine their designs based on real user data, they enhance their chances of achieving long-term success.

In this article, we’ll explore practical strategies for effectively testing and iterating a new startup’s new product’s UI/UX design.

First, let us go through the challenges (and opportunities) you’ll face when creating a UI/UX design strategy for a startup from scratch.

UI/UX Design from Scratch for Startups: Key Challenges and Opportunities

Starting with a blank slate can be both liberating and daunting. While the freedom to innovate is appealing, it also places the burden of responsibility squarely on the startup to define and address real user problems. It necessitates rigorous user research to identify the specific issues that need solving.

Without a clear understanding of user pain points, any UI/UX design effort risks being misaligned with market needs. To ensure that the problems being addressed are both real and significant, startups should focus on gathering substantial evidence. This involves identifying issues that affect a large number of users frequently or that incur considerable costs or discomfort.

Moreover, startups must be aware of existing competitors addressing similar issues. It is not enough to solve a problem; your solution must be better, faster, or cheaper than others in the market. This competitive analysis is essential for carving out a unique value proposition.

This whole process of designing from scratch can be distilled into three key steps:

• Identify a Valuable Problem: Ensure you have compelling evidence that the problem is significant and affects many users.
• Develop a Unique Solution: Innovate a UI/UX design solution that provides a competitive advantage over existing offerings.
• Prioritize Decisions: Focus on creating essential UI/UX design features that effectively address the problem while minimizing unnecessary complexity.

Once the core problem and an effective UI/UX design solution are identified, map out a viable business model.

Before that, ask your stakeholders and a small group of users about the viability of your ideas.

Tweak your UI/UX design ideas as per their recommendations.

Then, evaluate various monetization strategies — advertisements, subscriptions, or premium features — to ensure their business model aligns with user expectations and market demands.

How to Test and Iterate Your Startup Product’s UI/UX Design

Once you have a viable and monetizable product + UI/UX design idea in mind:

Establish Basic Design Flows and Structures

From the outset, consider how users will navigate through your design.

Establishing intuitive flows — the sequence of pages, groups of linked pages, etc., to envision how your users will browse through the product.

Prioritize High-Value Features

Position the most valuable features prominently within your design plans.

Users typically land on the first screen by default; thus, placing key functionalities close to this entry point will increase the product’s ability to engage users.

Place constructive actions — those that add value, at the forefront of your design plans, making them easy to find.

Maintain User-Centric Approach

Next, go back to consulting with users! Conduct in-depth user research — we are talking interviews, surveys, and group discussions — to ensure that your initial UI/UX design plans are in line with your target audience’s pain points, needs, and behaviors.

Prioritize User Needs

Make sure your initial UI/UX design plans prioritize usability, simplicity, ease of navigation, and other core user needs.

Make the primary functions of your new product as intuitive and accessible as possible in your initial design flows.

Eliminate design features that do not contribute to the primary purpose of the product. Position core features on the main UI where they are easily accessible.

Start Prototyping to Get More In-Depth Feedback

Create paper prototypes to share your initial UI/UX design ideas with users. Use the simple sketches to help users:

• Visualize different UI design options.
• Test different information architectures to see if they can find what they need from the product (i.e., its core features) easily.
• Share their feedback on the product’s overall flow and layout.

Once users approve the basic UI/UX design ideas presented in the paper prototypes, switch to digital prototyping.

Use tools like Figma and Adobe XD to build interactive prototypes of your product’s UX design.

Again, collect user feedback on these prototypes and revise accordingly.

After revisions, start adding more visual details and interactions into your digital prototypes using tools like Sketch or Framer.

Then, send these final prototypes for testing:

• Conduct one-on-one interviews to ask users about their experiences with the prototype.
• Ask users to share their likes, dislikes, and suggestions for improvements.
• Use tools like User Interviews, Zoom, and Lookback to conduct remote interviews as well.

You can also use tools like SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, and Typeform to create surveys and questionnaires. Gather data on users’ likes, dislikes, and design suggestions.

Also, perform tree testing to assess whether your design prototype’s information architecture (IA) is up to the mark.

Ask users whether your design’s information flow is intuitive. Use tools like OptimalSort and Treejack to expedite this process.

Revise the Prototypes and Create an MVP

After learning what UI/UX design revisions your working prototype needs to be more user-centric, make them.

Then, send all design files to your development team and ask them to create a basic, minimum-viable product (MVP).

This basic, low-cost version of your product will feature all the main layouts, branding, styling, IA, and user journeys, that will ultimately end up in the final product.

Share the MVP with stakeholders and users. Then, perform usability testing. Usability testing involves observing users as they complete specific tasks on the MVP.

Allow users to interact with the MVP independently. You can use tools like UserTesting, Lookback, and Maze to perform these tests remotely. After the test users are done reviewing your MVP, ask them to share their qualitative insights. Ask what usability and UI/UX design-related improvements they would like to see in the product. Also, assess quantitative metrics like avg. time-on-task, avg. retention rates, task completion rates, etc., from the tests.

The more user feedback and data you can gather on the MVP, the better. Implementing the UI/UX design changes based on these inputs is the crucial last step before you ship the product.

Launch the Product

Do not wait for a “big bang” release. Do not try to perfect every aspect of your product. Release a viable version of the product as soon as it’s ready. Then, update it continuously.

Revise

You have done a lot of work to this point. You have researched the users of your product, assessed the situation(s) in which they’ll use that product, and even created prototypes and MVPs and tested them.

However, you are not done yet. In fact, you are never really ‘done.’

Users will change, their demands from your product will change, and the situations in which they use your product will change.

Designing for a startup is a recursive process that thrives on proactive monitoring and non-stop design revisions to meet evolving user needs.

After you launch your product, you still have to:

• Conduct all the different types of user research and tests we discussed above.
• Report what you’ve learned from testing to improve that product.
• Create a repository of information that can be used for more UI/UX design improvements down the line.
• Prototype, test, and deploy the revised product.
• Evaluate that product again with user feedback to improve its UI/UX design.
• Restart this cycle all over again.

Conclusion

Is it really that important for startups to continuously evaluate user feedback and adapt to changing circumstances?

Yes.

20% of startups fail within the first year of launch. The ones that make it through years two, three, and beyond are the ones that keep refining their products’ UI/UX design based on evolving user needs.

It does not mean you should totally discard your original product design and restart from scratch every time you start off the testing + revision cycle. Doing so can alienate users who have become accustomed to the previous version, even if it has flaws. Instead, think about testing and iteration, as a mandate to monitor the product’s use all the time.

Set up processes that compel you to constantly collect user data. Use that data to constantly experiment with new UI/UX design tactics to improve their experiences. If you are a new business, building a new product from scratch — find a startup UI/UX design agency that shares this mentality.

Even if your budget and time are limited, ask your agency to find ways to iterate your product’s UI/UX design as much as they can. Constant testing and iterating will increase the accuracy of their UI/UX design decisions and ensure that your users stay loyal to your new brand.