Testing software effectively requires understanding users and solving problems from their perspective. This is where design thinking comes in handy. By applying design thinking principles to software testing, we as testers can create more innovative, empathetic and user-centric test plans.
The Need for Design Thinking
As software continues to power more aspects of our life, delivering intuitive user experiences is key to adoption. However, software teams are often pressed to deliver features fast, which is where the user perspective falls through the cracks. This results in solutions that fail to solve customer problems leading to lack of engagement.
According to a Deloitte survey, 80% of users stop using apps due to poor performance and 60% due to lack of value. Design thinking offers a framework to avoid this through user-centricity.
Adobe saw 50% more loyal users and 41% increased market share by incorporating design thinking, as per Forbes. The question is – how can testers benefit from design thinking?
Core Principles of Design Thinking
The design thinking approach has 5 main steps:
Empathize – Understanding user needs, pains and behaviors through surveys, analytics, interviews etc.
Define – Framing the users‘ problems clearly based on the user research
Ideate – Brainstorming creative potential solutions to the problem
Prototype – Building experimental versions of solutions to test assumptions
Test – Trying out prototypes with real users to gather feedback
At its core, design thinking relies on deep user empathy, experimentation and feedback loops. Let‘s see how we can apply this framework to improve software testing.
Generating Creative Testing Ideas
As testers, we tend to take the easiest path to meet coverage goals rather than exploring innovative test cases. Design thinking promotes thinking outside the box right from the ideation stage.
For example, when testing a conversational chatbot interface, instead of basic happy path user queries, we can adopt a beginner‘s mindset to think of questions users may ask that can break the bot – this improves test coverage.
Some ideation techniques testers can borrow from design thinkers include:
- Brainwriting – Everyone writes down ideas individually first before discussing, preventing groupthink
- Worst possible idea – Think of bad ideas to invert into creative test cases
- SCAMPER model – Use heuristics like SUBSTITUTE and MODIFY to generate test ideas
A cloud testing platform like BrowserStack enables collaboration between testers, developers and designers. This allows exchanging feedback on innovative testing ideas through integrated tools.
Right Prototyping Before Scale
Many testing teams struggle with only limited prototyping done before being presented with a fully-coded application for end-to-end testing. This leads to constantly reacting to defects rather than preventing them early.
Design thinking offers a structured approach to building and testing assumptions during early prototyping stages using low-fidelity prototypes. Testing paper prototypes, for example, can reveal workflow issues early.
Mozilla found that by prototyping UI animation effects before implementation, they prevented 41% of reported animation bugs as per this case study. We as testers can advocate for such prototyping in projects.
Prototyping levels that testers can recommend:
Low – Paper prototypes, wireframes
Medium – Static site templates, mock APIs
High – Limited function apps with simulated backends
This allows testing assumptions in a modular way before heavy backend investments are made by engineering.
User Feedback Driven Development
While automation plays an important role, nothing can replace manual testing with real users. Design thinking‘s systematic user testing enables gathering qualitative insights that no simulator can find.
Direct user feedback is invaluable for revealing gaps in understanding regarding integration points between UI flows, application logic and database. Observing where users struggle guides better system integration testing.
For example, a confusing form field error message caused users to repeatedly enter invalid inputs. Only user testing revealed this UX issue for the team to address.
During such testing, we can gather feedback on:
- Effectiveness of work-flows
- Missing steps in tasks
- Ideas for new features
- parts of UI that need improvement
Armed with user inputs, we can have more constructive discussions around enhancing test plans for maximum impact.
From my experience in testing over 150 apps, no amount of spec documentation beats sitting with 5 end users and observing them first-hand to reveal product assumptions.
Key Benefits of Design Thinking
Here are some top benefits I have witnessed through incorporating design thinking into software testing:
Improved UX focus – Testing aligns better to user journeys rather than features in isolation
Higher test coverage – Creative ideation leads to more test cases around edge cases
Reduced escapes – Prototyping surfaces defects before committing big investments
Well informed development – Direct user inputs guide engineering prioritization
Higher product adoption – Software perceived as solving the right user problems
While adopting design thinking may need changes in team processes, the payoff can be transformative.
Platforms like BrowserStack offer easier collaboration for testing teams to exchange feedback with designers and developers through integrated tools and advanced analytics.
By leveraging design thinking principles as test professionals, we can incorporate user-centricity more systematically into our testing for maximum impact.
Hope this guide gave you creative ideas on advancing quality through design thinking! Do share your thoughts or queries in the comments section below.
