Did you know that early-stage InVision user testing can determine whether your digital product is going to be successful or not? Just imagine: you already have your beautiful design or wireframe ready in InVision. Even your family members are marveling at how great is the job you have done. Now is the best time for you to learn whether it’s a really good digital product or just a nicely done design, that your mom approved. You know what they say, “ not everything beautiful is also usable.”
Table of contents
What is InVision?
InVision is a cloud-based digital design platform that helps professionals and all kinds of businesses out there to create and manage prototypes and wireframes of all types. It allows users to use their digital dashboard to create, collaborate, test, and experiment with designs and wireframes they create within the app. These prototypes can be shared right away with the client or a team member, which allows you to get instant feedback on your projects.
Key features:
- Presentations
- Prototypes
- Wireframes
- Planning
- Feedback and comments on your designs
- Vector editing
- Animations
- Collaboration
InVision Prototype app is very flexible when it comes to synchronization and integration with other management apps such as Basecamp, JIRA, Teamwork, Trello, Dropbox, Slack, Confluence, and Microsoft Teams. It comes with shared design libraries that help people collaborate, mirror mobile devices, and edit timelines. InVision users are also provided with monthly subscription plans and exellent support.
Why InVision?
There are many reasons why so many people choose InVision as their go-to tool for prototyping. Here are some of them explained:
Easy collaboration
It has never been that simple to get feedback right away from your client or colleague. You simply share the link to the final product, and allow them to comment on your design. No more confusing discussions via email, chats, or phone calls. With InVision you can enjoy clear communication together with smooth designprocess.
Real and fast prototypes
When you create a design and want to present it to your client, you should be as detailed and concrete as possible. This means the prototype should include everything from the general design of the whole page (if we are speaking about websites) to the button or link hover color effects. InVision is the perfect tool for focusing on details.
Time-saving features
Besides other advantages we already mentioned, you can easily synchronize your designs or templates created in other applications such as Sketch or Photoshop with InVision. No need to spend tons of time exporting and importing huge files from one platform to another. This is what we call smart efficiency during production.
Responsive mockup creation
Nowadays, a responsive website is considered a standard you gonna get automatically when hiring any designer or developer. Therefore a responsive website mockup is a base that should be tested far before going live. InVision provides flexible choices to test your design on various screens such as desktop, tablet mobile, and even smart watch.
Smooth process
People sometimes forget that when it comes to design, it is also important how you hand it over to the next department. To be more exact, it is crucial how a designer or graphic department hands over a project to a developers team who are going to bring the design to life. That’s why all files and assets needed for future development should be impeccable. InVision provides a plugin that can assure that all the files used during the design process are stored in one place and easily accessible.
What are the benefits of InVision user testing?
Clear communication
Communication is absolutely vital in any development stage of your project and in life in general- so you know. When testing your InVision prototype with users, it allows you to break down the communication barriers including unclear and misleading email messages or phone calls. In testing, everyone is involved in real-time communication which brings desired feedback that can be used for fundamental improvements in the next steps of your project.
Valuable user feedback
Feedback is the king of any successful project out there. It lets you move forward to the desired and functional product that people are gonna love. That’s why getting feedback on your prototypes early-on is so important. With the information you gather from the testers you’ll be able to make necessary improvements to fine-tune your UX long before the development process.
Failing early-on
When is the best time to fail? You would say never. We would say the earlier, the better! When testing in the early stages of your project, you are getting a chance to commit mistakes that are not gonna cost you a fortune and can still be fixed. Therefore, timing is the key player in this stage of the process. We advise you to make all the mistakes at the prototyping stage, so that you can get feedback, learn from it, and make changes.
Saving you tons of money
As mentioned before, the earlier you fail, the less it’s gonna cost you. We’re gonna leave it to your imagination how expensive it would be to not test your product, launch it, and get a slap in your face realizing that your potential users are not able to use it because of a poor UX?
Generating new ideas
Let’s be honest here, you might be a great UX researcher, but you are definitely not a master of the human’ s mind, feelings, or needs. Don’t worry, nobody is. However, you need to get used to situations where you present your perfect design to your client and suddenly they seem to point out tons os it’s downsides. Welcome to the feedback world, my friend. The great thing about it is that you can learn something new and get a different perspective on your designs, which normally generates new ideas for improvement 🙂
How to test your InVision prototype with UXtweak?
Even if it sounds scary, testing your InVision prototype is a piece of cake when done with the right tool. With UXtweak you can set up a prototype testing study in a couple of clicks and here’s how:
- Register or log in to your UXtweak account
- Name your study, set up a language and ending conditions for the study
- Import your InVision prototype:
- sign into InVision
- choose the prototype you want to test
- click the share button and copy the public share link
Once you have the link, you only need to insert it into the Prototype link field and click Import. UXtweak will do the rest of the work and you should see your designs, including the hotspots appear in prototype editor.
- Create tasks for testers to fulfill (as well as the starting points and correct solutions)
- Write instructions, welcome and thank you messages
- Set-up a screening question for your respondents, add some pre- and post-study questions
- Brand your study with the company’s logo and colors
- Recruit respondents. You can share a link to your study via email or social media or set-up a Recruiting Widget on your website and get your real users to participate!
And that’s it, you’re good to go! Now just perform your study, analyze the results and move on to the next stage of creating your user-friendly digital product.
Final words of wisdom from us to you
When prototype testing, please:
- Prepare real content (or at least as close to real as possible)
- Set a clear goal. Decide what you want to test and what info do you expect to get.
- Choose your words wisely and ask good questions
And the last final piece of advice from Nielsen Norman Group:
So remember, it does not matter if you test InVision prototypes or prototypes in any other design platform.
Keep in mind to test as soon as possible and concentrate on quality instead of quantity.
