Rapid remote user testing for a new banking feature.

Coming in late (as per usual bring in UX late to the party) with predefined criteria for a new feature within the online banking application, with limited time to make a release deadline and COVID requiring remote working and testing. And on top of that a waterfall process where all the designs are required to be completely tested and complete with full specifications done in a word doc that gets handed over to external developers where no direct communication is done between design and development other than feedback through other business stakeholders. This is how I began my journey of helping customers track their progress toward meeting eligibility criteria so that they can get financial gains month by month.  

Since the BA had nothing to work off when starting his specifications doc, he decided to make his own wireframes, which I found was very helpful giving me the ability to use it as a quick reference, allowing me to understand the concept and the business needs in a way that I could produce my own designs post-hast and start testing them a soon as I could.

Due to the timing of the deadline to handover being very tight, rapid prototyping was required to show what I had intended to build to our team. Once we felt like we had met the requirements in detail and checked tech feasibility we knew that there was comprehension-based testing needed. Now, most of the time in the past I would do this with in-person lab testing for this test type, but as we all know the environment, in which we are working has changed forcing me to adapt to remote methods.

With this test, I opted for an unmoderated method which normally does not align with the tools that are available which are more tasked based, but I needed to have this completed within the week. So with careful planning and deciding on doing the analysis offline, we could get the results done in time. I do love how rapidly you can do your testing online these days. (even if you need to be just as careful with recruitment and execution.)

In the end, we felt we got great results from this method that not only helped with this feature but gave us more insights into other areas as well. It was a process that gave me comfort in using this method of testing to achieve important customer experiences on products in the future.