Overview

Use the following tips to test out new areas of your digital workplace to ensure you're designing effectively for your intended audience and the highest level of engagement. This will help you evolve your digital workplace successfully, with user interests, needs, and wants, top-of-mind.  

Recommendations

• Set up a sandbox space and grant access to a diverse group of members that have volunteered to provide feedback. You want to make sure these users match your criteria for the right user of the new area. Ideally, you want to test with at least 7-10 people to get accurate and unbiased insights.
• Write out some workflow tasks that you'd like your users to complete, such as adding an article or creating a task and assigning someone to it. This allows you to test against your intended interactions and context for that area and identify the gaps accordingly. 
• Actions truly do speak louder than words, so observe users as they complete these tasks with you, so you can identify any points of confusion or gaps. This is the most critical piece of feedback you can use to pivot and change the structure or content of your new area. 
• Do not guide the user as they complete their tasks and remain as neutral as possible to get the truest form of feedback.
• Get your users to talk out loud and walk you through what they are thinking every step of the way. This vocalization helps you get an idea of their thought process so you can change things accordingly.
• If you are unable to observe in person, set up a task questionnaire so your testers can record their observations and send them over. 
• If you'd like to perform additional testing, organize a focus group to come together to share their experience and feedback.
• Do not make changes to your new area based on one person's feedback. As a general rule, only make a change if more than 40% of your testers provide the same kind of feedback. 
• After making the appropriate changes, follow up with the same users and conduct a second round of feedback. Also get a couple of new people to take a look to ensure you've optimized the new area for success!