User testing is an essential part of the product development process, helping designer and businesses gather valuable insights about how real users interact with their digital products. Traditionally, user testing has involved time-consuming processes like focus groups, surveys, and manual analysis of user behavior. But with Artificial Intelligence (AI), this process is being revolutionized. AI-powered user testing tools are making it faster, more efficient, and more accurate, transforming the way feedback loops work in product design.

Discovery research is often the most challenging and complex research phase in the product lifecycle because it doesn’t always have a tangible outcome (e.g “let’s build that feature”) and their scope is often much broader than other types of research work. Discovery is also one of the most crucial part of the product lifecycle, because, done right, it gives the team the insights needed to solve real user and business problems at a market level.

Over the years, I’ve been part of enough design critiques and review sessions to understand what makes them valuable or a complete waste of time for everyone. Requesting feedback might seem trivial but there is an art to doing it the right way, especially if you are after useful and actionable feedback.

The best product teams have one thing in common: they are aligned behind an agile process that helps them mitigate risks and build the right solutions at the right time for their business and its users. Defining and nurturing a process that works for your team isn’t easy but it’s worth the effort.

Over the last few years, Maze has become one of my favourite tools for gathering insights and testing ideas and prototypes async. Below are some tips that will help you optimise your usability tests and make it a fun experience for your users.

In 2021 I worked on creating a template to document my research and design documentation more efficiently and to make my process and communication around design and product decisions more transparent and efficient.