Prototype improvement
Validation Survey Test
A Validation Survey Test helps you gather structured feedback from a group of users to confirm or challenge assumptions about your solution. It’s especially useful when you need a quick signal, not deep stories, to decide whether to move forward, adjust, or dig deeper with other tests.
Why Use this tool?
Check, at scale, if people agree and would choose it.
Surveys help you move beyond individual reactions and spot patterns across users. They’re a fast way to check if your solution resonates, if a feature makes sense, or if an assumption holds true before you invest more time or resources
what you should know
Start With: A prototype, concept, or specific assumption you want to test
End With: Clear signals to validate, invalidate, or refine your solution
Time Needed:
• Preparation: short
• Execution: 5–10 minutes per participant
• Analysis: medium
Difficulty: ⭐ ⭐ ☆☆☆ (2 out of 5 – simple to run, requires clarity of intent )
People:
• 4-20 participants (answered individually, repeated across users)
• 1-2 coordinators
A quickguide to start
2. Choose your audience. Identify the user segment and estimate responses.
3. Design the questions. Use mostly closed or multiple-choice questions, with 1–2 optional open questions for context.
4. Set success indicators. Decide in advance what result would validate or invalidate your assumption.
5. Run the survey. Share it digitally or in person. If relevant, show the prototype before participants respond.
6. Review and decide. Look for patterns, compare results to your criteria, and decide what to keep, change, or test next.
helpful tips
- Use surveys to complement other tests. They work especially well after interviews or A/B tests to add scale.
- Keep it short. Fewer, clearer questions increase completion and quality.
- Decide before you ask. Define what “success” looks like before sending the survey to avoid biased interpretation.
RACU meets AI
Validation Survey
How Can AI Make RACU Easier ?
AI can be your creative partner and research assistant, ready to help you move faster and think deeper at every step of the RACU process.
For each RACU tool, we’ll share a ready-to-use AI prompt. Just copy the prompt into your favorite AI tool (like ChatGPT or Copilot) and it will guide you through the method step by step.
The AI becomes your facilitator, asking the right questions so you can build your thinking as you go. No need to fill out a blank form, the prompt starts the conversation and adapts to your answers in real time.
PROMPT – COPILOT, CHAT GPT
You are a facilitator helping me complete a Research & Discovery Card for a design thinking challenge.
Guide me step-by-step by asking the following questions one at a time, and wait for my answer before moving on. You can ask follow-up questions if needed to clarify or improve my responses.
Start with general context:
1. What is the challenge, project, or topic you’re working on? (Briefly describe the scope or goal.)
Then go into Research (existing data):
2. What existing information do we need to gather to better understand this challenge?
3. Where can we get that information? (e.g., internal reports, dashboards, previous research, public sources)
4. What specific questions will this data help us answer?
5. Who on the team will be responsible for gathering this information?
Then move to Discovery (new research):
6. Who should we learn from? (e.g., users, clients, collaborators, stakeholders)
7. Where can we find or reach them?
8. What topics, needs, or behaviors should we explore in the research?
9. What discovery methods could work best for this challenge? (Examples: interviews, shadowing, observation, journaling, immersing yourself in the experience, etc.)
10. How many people should we involve or study?
11. When will this research happen?
12. Who on the team will lead or coordinate this discovery work?
At the end, summarize my answers as a Research & Discovery Plan with two sections:
- Research (existing data)
- Discovery (new fieldwork)
Use bullet points and keep it simple enough to copy into a worksheet.
