Testing is one of the most crucial steps in product development. Whether you are building a mobile app or a tangible product, you need to test it out before releasing it to the market. The best industrial design companies never leave this phase out; in fact, they will insist that you take part of the testing procedures so that you can see how your product is transforming from concept to actual material.
A lot of clients usually ask to skip the product testing phase. It is mainly because testing consumes time and money, and realizing flaws may mean going back to the building stage.
Product testing offers a lot of benefits to your business. These include:
1. Design issues are identified and addressed.
Testing does more than just look for flaws; they are studied and addressed in the best ways possible. During this phase in product development, the product undergoes a series of examinations where its different aspects are put under scrutiny. There are tests for build and material, tests to check functionality (mechanical, electrical, network, etc.)
The ultimate goal of testing is to see whether the product being developed is able to deliver its promise of changing the way people address the problem it is trying to solve. If you conceptualized the product, you have based it under a lingering issue that no other product or procedure has addressed yet. It is through testing you can confirm whether or not your hypothesis is correct. If not, then you and the best industrial design company you are working with can come up with other solutions to achieve this goal.
2. You have to gauge user acceptance.
You may have built the “perfect” product that solves the problems you are aiming to address, but it can be too complicated for the common man to use. This is where user acceptance testing comes in, and this part of the testing process is important as well.
Users see products from a different lens. As the creator of the product, you know its ins and outs, pros and cons, features and flaws. More importantly, you know how to make the product work. However, from a user’s point of view, that’s not the case.
Users are only interested in how the product can deliver results. They look at a product based on its functions and outputs, not how it works from the inside. When the product proves to be difficult to manage by its target users, then it would not be used at all.
You have to understand how your market uses your product. By means of product testing, you can get their feedback and apply these tweaks before releasing the product’s final version to the market.
3. Testing reduces product development time.
In any business, time is money. Time is likewise money in product development. Sure, skipping time for testing allows you to release your product to the market right away. However, what if flaws are immediately identified by your users? You may start receiving customer complaints to the point that you have to recall your product and bring it back to the development stage. It would only result in consuming not just time, but more money too.
The testing stage helps reduce the time spent on product development, since issues are found and addressed way before it hits the market. A flawed product may not only lose you customers; it may damage your brand’s overall reputation as well.
