Prototype Testing: How Might We Learn as Much as Possible From the Participants While Also Giving Them Necessary Directions to Click Through the Prototype?

In recent iterative testing projects, I have been conducting concept testing with participants to learn about their experience of our mid-fi clickable prototype. In the prototype, there are 20+ screens, and they are of a linear step-by-step fashion. The selection of each step should feed into the following steps — and ultimately the final step.

In the prototyping stage, in order to avoid having to prototype endless combinations for all selections, the designers have decided to integrate the input of only one route. This one route includes selections bearing the character “Jamie June” in mind: she’s a hat seller, she lives in Florida, and she likes colors, this and that. The input, sometimes text inputs but mostly selections are based on how Jamie would proceed with the product.

(I made a prototype of the prototype so that I am not sharing confidential company info 😆. This is an illustration of how the participants are seeing the prototype. In the left image, if they wanted to select the bottom option, the prototype wouldn’t let them; in the image to the right, the prototype doesn’t allow typing, so when they click on the screen, “Jamie June” would pop up.)

In the dry-run session of the concept testing, as the researcher, I introduced the task to the participant that aimed to help them understand that

• “The prototype has limited functions, so it might not work as you intended it to”
• “There are no right and wrong actions whatsoever in interacting with the prototype, don’t worry about doing…