Design under constraints~40 min

Design Under Constraints: Plan a Five-Person Usability Test

Early preview draft — not yet practitioner or accessibility reviewed.
Goal
Practice designing a usability test that answers a real question with a small budget — the plan is where most tests are actually won or lost, long before anyone watches a participant.
Scenario
A signup flow you work with (pick any product you know well) loses people somewhere between "create account" and first real use. You get five remote participants, thirty minutes each, and one week. What do you test, with whom, and how will you know what you learned?
Audience
Your team, who will only act on the findings if the plan was credible — right participants, right tasks, no leading.
Constraints
Five participants, 30 minutes each, remote, one week. No surveys, no analytics work — this lab is specifically about the moderated-test plan.
Deliverable
A test plan containing: the one question the test answers; who the five participants are and one screening question that finds them; three task scenarios written in the participant's language (no interface words like "click the blue button"); what you'll record; and the top two things that could invalidate the results.
Counts on your evidence profile as
A completed Skill Lab with its rubric and your deliverable
Accessibility requirement
The screener must not screen out assistive-technology users by accident — if your product supports them, your test should be able to include them.
AI policy
AI use is allowed in a limited way for this lab — see details below. AI is fine for tightening task wording once the plan is yours; the research question, participant definition, and validity thinking are the skills under practice.
Rubric
  • One question, really: The plan answers exactly one research question, and every task visibly serves it — no "while we have them, let's also…" scope creep.
  • Tasks don't lead: Task scenarios describe goals in the participant's terms; none of them name interface elements or hint at the expected path.
  • Validity threats are real: The two invalidators are specific to THIS plan (screening miss, task order effect, prototype gap) — not generic caveats like "small sample size."
Resources

Skills: User Interviews, Usability Testing

Relevant to: Product Designer, UX Designer, UX Researcher

Your work

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