You have worked hard on your app, know who you’re building it for, and have done your research. What you may now know is what the audience you’re trying to target actually wants. You might not be building a product for the right audience. In app development, you need product validation because this is an essential step. It avoids the various common problems such as undesired products, incomplete products, and faulty ones.
You need to validate a product, look at market demand, and understand the pain points of customers before you launch an app. If you don’t do this, the app will likely fail. Here are four strategies that you can use so you avoid the mistake of improper product validation before you launch your app.
Reviewing the App Against Formal Acceptance Criteria
The desires, needs, and wants of the user must guide the whole design process. The user guidelines are the basis on which an app finds success after it’s built. If you have an app that doesn’t match these guidelines or doesn’t have a critical feature the user wants, then it won’t do well in the market. If your competitor has a feature of importance and you do not, then you’re going to lose customers. You need to review the product against acceptance criteria to avoid this problem as it has to meet certain standards the user has. You can get formal acceptance criteria by looking at past experience, user research, and platform guidelines.
User Acceptance Test
Another strategy that you can use is a user acceptance test. This helps you validate the product before you build it. You can do this with a prototype, imitation product, mockup, or an MVP. This is out through a beta or alpha user test. During the iterative process, the user provides feedback where you can iron out kinks or problems during the early development phase.
Have Focus Groups
Another common strategy that’s used are focus groups for product validation. This helps to analyze a user’s behavior as they use an app. You can gather a cross-section of users that match up the target audience you have. The mockup or prototype is released to the focus group so you can examine behaviors as users interact with the app. If they don’t understand or misuse the app, it can then be sent to the design phase for further work.
Putting the App into the Market
You can test the app by releasing the app into the market. This is the most realistic and highly effective test to validate your product. You’re actually testing the product tin the market. You can do the research, create your app, and then launch this into the marketplace to gather user feedback. The common measurable are the feedback and user reviews of your app that you can use to tell the success of your app. You have to consider the timeline in which you release your app into the market. You don’t want to release your app too early because the product may be unfinished and this can hurt your brand considerably. If there’s a lot of competition and better products on the market, you could tarnish your brand quickly. You also don’t want to wait too long if you have a lot of money invested in your product as it might not succeed. You have to release the app at the right time and then modify the app so you meet the needs of those using the app.
By using these four strategies will help you refine your app and gain an understanding of your users. Poor market research, competition, and a faulty product are some of the reasons apps fail in the marketplace. By using some or all of these validation tests you’ll illustrate how your product is going to perform in the marketplace which will increase user retention and get you more downloads.
