Prototype improvement
Test Card
Helps your team clearly outline what you want to learn by organizing your test into four simple parts: what you believe (the hypothesis), what you’ll do (the experiment), what you’ll measure (the data), and how you’ll know if it worked (the success criteria). It’s a practical way to check your assumptions before investing more time or resources.
Why Use this tool ?
Turn ideas into evidence-based learning.
The Research & Discovery Card helps you and your team define what you need to lear and how you’ll go about it. It turns ambiguity into direction, so you can spend time discovering what matters most, not scrambling for answers.
what you should know
Start With: A concept and one or more assumptions you’re unsure about.
End With: A clear test plan you can actually run
Time Needed: 20 – 40 minutes to define; execution varies
Difficulty: ⭐ ⭐⭐ ☆☆ (3 out of 5 – requires focus and clarity)
Best Used When: You need learning, not certainty.
A quickguide to start
2. State the hypothesis. What do you believe needs to be true for this idea to work?
3. Describe the test. What will you do to check that belief? Keep it simple and realistic.
4. Define the metric. What will you observe, count, or listen for?
5. Set success criteria. What result tells you you’re right, or wrong?
helpful tips
- Start small. Fast, low-cost tests often teach you the most.
- Test the riskiest assumption first—the one that could break the idea.
- A failed hypothesis is not failure; it’s progress and direction.
RACU meets AI
Test Card
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.
