How Often Should I Collect Feedback?

The classic answer to the user experience question “How often should I test?” is to test early and test often. The intent of this answer is to indicate that there is never a bad time to test.

• If you have a question during your project, it is key to get the perspective of your customers.
• If your team is making decisions based on “what the customers think/need,” then collect feedback from your customers on their perspectives and needs.
• If you have to make a choice about design options, feature prioritization, or anything else, get feedback from your customers about why they would choose one option over the other.

The more your team empathizes with your customers—the more they understand those customers’ perspectives—the better decisions your team can make.

Here are some guidelines and resources to help your team determine when is the right time to collect feedback from your customers.

Create a high-level roadmap of your team’s initiatives for the next year and identify what data you need to gather from your customers to inform those initiatives.

• The master class on test creation includes some lessons and a template for creating a roadmap.
• Plan regularly scheduled benchmark studies to evaluate existing experiences over time. Even if you don’t change a design or webpage, external factors (or experience with your company’s other offerings) may change your customers’ expectations or needs.

For each project or initiative, test throughout the project life cycle. Discover your customers’ needs, collect feedback on your solution ideas, and test to ensure your solution is meeting those customer needs.

• The University’s Use Cases in the UserTesting Platform course is a good introduction to when in your project life cycle you should gather feedback.
• The Platform also includes templates you can use throughout your projects.

Make collecting feedback a repeatable process so that it is an integral part of all the project work you do.

• See our course Measuring the Success of Your Testing Program.
• If you need to define a standard process for each test, start with our The Testing Process course.

Share the value of customer insights with everyone in your organization.

• Each time you collect feedback, determine the most compelling way to communicate findings to the appropriate stakeholders.
• Enable everyone in your organization to leverage insights from your customers by building a practice to collect insights.