When building any product you initially make some assumptions:
- Kids like videos
- People like sending videos
- Long videos are boring
A bad product development habit is to take those assumptions and run allllll the way to market. I AM A GENIUS AND ALWAYS RIGHT. EVERYONE WILL LOVE THESE FEATURES NO MATTER WHAT. But we all know what happens when you assume right?
So hold up before you set those ideas in code. Make some prototypes and….ASK PEOPLE. Do you like this? How about this? What do you do when you have the option to do this? As you may have read before, we validated our largest assumption of all with Prototype One: Do kids like to watch videos? Do kids like to watch videos of people they know? And the answer was a resounding yes. (They’re even quoting videos back to us weeks later).
But now we have more subtle assumptions. Parents will want to record tons of videos. Kids will like shorter videos better. Kids like videos of other things too. Are these things true?
How do we test this? By not telling anyone what we’re testing and just watching what they do when given the means to play. Enter Prototype Two:
- Ability to create your own videos (no limit on length).
- Ability for kids to watch videos that were recording on the same device
- Ability for kids to watch videos of stock content (ladybug, fish, money, race car)
What do we want to learn?
- How many videos will parents make?
- Will kids watch stock videos more?
- On average how long of a video will they record?
- Do kids watch shorter videos more times?
How do we learn all these things from a prototype? Well, we do two things. We build in analytics in the code of the prototype itself. Analytic tools like Flurry tell us where, when, how many times someone taps something in the app. Analytics can’t tell you how a user feels or things just their actions, so we also talk with our testers through surveys and one on ones.
Currently Prototype Two is out in the wild. If you would like to get your hands on it – sign up and we’ll send you a download. Or if you already have it – send us those survey results (Reading them is like opening a Christmas present. Really!)