3 Types of Design Experiment (and when to use them)

When identifying the assumptions behind our solutions, we categorised them under the four key product risks: desirability, usability, feasibility, and viability.

But how do you determine what experiment to use? There are lot's of options for testing desirability from simple surveys to crowdfunding campaigns to MVPs. Although, there is a big difference in the level of effort required to deliver on each of these.

We need to align the level of effort we invest in testing with our confidence in the solution. This means the earlier we are, the simpler our tests should be. Which means we need to define tests according to the stage of development rather than the risk being evaluated.

Exploratory tests help refine raw ideas, evaluative tests validate evolving designs, and verification tests ensure long-term success. In this weeks article I go into detail about the types of tests under each of these categories and when to use them.

This Week’s Updates

Enabling the Team

Employees See Middle Managers As An Organization’s Moral Compass by Brooke Vuckovic
Middle managers are often seen as bottlenecks, but they are key moral compasses who encourage principled decision-making and ethical leadership in their teams.

Haier’s Radical Experiment: What If Every Employee Was An Entrepreneur? by Joost Minnaar
Haier, an 80,000-people Chinese manufacturer, measures employee satisfaction by how many entrepreneurs launch new businesses within the company.

Product Direction

The Top 5 Challenges Of Large-scale Product Teams by Airtable
The 5 challenges; goal alignment, roadmap management, prioritizing initiatives, team coordination, and maintaining data integrity. These can be tackled by centralizing objectives, collaborating across teams & reporting progress regularly. [Sponsored]

The Impact Of Working In A Product Trio by Teresa Torres
The results are in: people who work in a product trio are more satisfied with both their team and company. However, measuring business outcomes remains a challenge.

Continuous Research

Making Continuous Discovery Work For You: The Spicey Approach by Melissa Suzuno
The SPICEY framework (Strategize, Prep, Implement, Customize, Embrace Flexibility, and You) guides teams in adopting continuous discovery habits.

Using Visual Storytelling To Increase UX Research Report Success by Natasha S. den Dekker
Transforming research results into compelling visuals, like comics, can make findings more memorable and actionable. AI tools help bring stories to life with ease.

Continuous Design

3 Types Of Design Experiment (And When To Use Them) by Rory Madden
Exploratory tests help refine raw ideas, evaluative tests validate evolving designs, and verification tests ensure long-term success.

Experience Design: The Next Iteration Of UX? by Kate Moran
Experience design centers around creating seamless, meaningful user interactions with a product by anticipating needs, emotional engagement, and long-term satisfaction.

Continuous Development

How LLMs Are Secretly Reshaping The Code Of Tomorrow, And What To Do About It by Nathan Peck
Developers rely on AI-assisted code, but subtle LLM biases may standardise patterns and influence future software architecture without oversight.

Quality Attributes by Jacqui Read
A practical breakdown of key software quality attributes (like scalability, availability, and testability) crucial for making sound architectural trade-offs.

3 Career Game-Changers at UXDX EMEA 2025
Level Up or Stay Stuck.

Whether you’re an individual contributor, a team lead, or a product executive, your career is shaped by how you navigate leadership, change, and opportunity. At UXDX EMEA 2025, top industry leaders will share hard-earned insights on growing your career and leading through change.

• Mergers, Acquisitions & What it Means for Your Product & Team – Tali Malchior, VP of Product at Texthelp, unpacks the reality of organizational change and how to adapt, lead, and seize new opportunities.

• Is Design Really That Important? Rethinking Leadership in Challenging Times Ahead – Pamela Mead, Global VP of Design at SumUp, explores the evolving role of design leadership and how to stay impactful in shifting business landscapes.

• How 12 Years as a Senior IC Designer at Salesforce Led to My Best Career Growth – Cliff Seal, UX Architect at Salesforce, shares what he learned about career longevity and finding growth beyond the traditional management path.

If you're looking to level up your career, this is your chance to learn from those who've done it. Grab your ticket now and take charge of your career growth!

FREE COMMUNITY EVENTS 

Check out more upcoming community events 

Video of the Week
King's Product Prioritization Framework (RICE Model)
for 400+ Team Members!

This week, Jaco Els (Head of Product Shared Tech at King) shares valuable insights into how King transformed their product prioritization process. With 22 product teams and over 400 team members, King had to rethink their traditional methods and shift to a value-driven approach. Jaco dives into how King adopted the RICE model (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) to create a more transparent and efficient system for prioritizing projects across such a large organization.

This video is packed with actionable insights on optimizing prioritization to improve workflow and project delivery. Watch the full video here 👇

The Results of Last Week’s Poll

The question: What's the biggest barrier to treating development as an extension of design?

This week’s poll results showed the biggest barriers to treating development as an extension of design. The dominant factor, with 46% of responses, points to mindset and culture as the primary obstacle. This highlights how deeply ingrained beliefs and attitudes about design and development can shape team dynamics and hinder collaboration.

Interestingly, organization structures and processes came in at 18% and 15%, respectively, suggesting that traditional hierarchies and rigid workflows also present challenges in fostering seamless integration. On the other hand, funding models were seen as a hurdle by 14%, while 7% of respondents disagreed with the idea that development should be viewed as an extension of design altogether.

If you’re aiming to break down silos and bridge the gap between design and development, it might be time to rethink your organizational culture and processes. Explore strategies for aligning teams in our Continuous Design course to create smoother, more cohesive product development experiences!

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