How to Collaborate with Your Development Team throughout User Testing

If you're leading an internal product team, you know how powerful user testing can be for creating a truly special EdTech product.

And while there's nothing wrong with testing to validate your assumptions or iron out kinks in a user flow, the real power comes from collaborating with your development team early and often.

That's because your technologist is a key partner in solving for the complexities of EdTech product design.

When user testing prompts include technical information, your UX team can collect the testing insights that empower development teams to solve real problems and offer groundbreaking solutions.

You'll also be more likely to save time and budget, since your design team won't be put in the position of having to re-design an interface when a technology fix will address the issue.

Here’s how to ensure that your UX researcher, technical lead, and product team are collaborating throughout the user testing phase, so you can create a more engaging EdTech product.

Collaborate on user testing questions that map to actionable goals

Before you get to the user testing phase, work directly with your research and technology specialists to develop testing questions that align with your technology and UX needs.

Together, you should generate a list of actionable product goals. Then, map those goals directly to the questions you plan to ask users during product testing.

If you’re developing a script for user interviews, questions should center around the goal of the product rather than design elements or desired features.

For example, you could ask teachers how your learning tool fits into their day-to-day, or whether they could use an EdTech product with a student sitting next to them.

This exercise paints a more accurate picture of how teachers and learners interact with your product—including the technology needs or barriers they might face.

Once your UX researcher and lead technologist are satisfied that your learning tool is meeting the larger product goal, they can more easily collaborate on design and technical solutions.

Ensure your product team understands how tech affects user journeys

When my team conducts user research, builds personas, and creates user journeys for clients, we always investigate the technology use of educators, administrators, and learners.

It's easy to incorporate tech-related questions into user surveys, and these questions also strengthen our ability to collaborate with development teams.

Here's a short list of technology-related questions we turn to again and again:

• Which devices will the product be used on? 
• Which parts of the product will be used on mobile? 
• Who will maintain the product once it’s sold?
• What kind of workflow does this user have? 
• How fast is the product on the user’s typical internet connection? 
• How robust is the search function?

With a stronger understanding of common technical issues in education, like slow internet speeds and older hardware, we can design learning tools that meet our users where they are.

Collaborate on front-end development—not just user interface design

Whenever possible, your design teams should participate in recommendations for front-end development.

You'll find more possibilities for the engaging brand moments that make or break EdTech products, like animations and interactions.

You'll also find more ways to collaborate on visual or haptic feedback for learners, which can be especially important for young learners who won't understand traditional error states.

The more your UX and development teams collaborate on front-end development choices, the more opportunities you have to explore creative solutions to complex user needs and challenges.

Use accessibility as an additional benchmark

The research and testing process contains ample opportunity to address accessibility in your learning tools without breaking the bank.

After all, a product’s speed or its lightweight feel is an issue of equity, especially in design for education. 

Old or poor quality hardware makes new digital products more difficult to use. 

And it's still common to find outdated, sluggish computers in many school districts with low IT budgets.

For example, when we worked on Starwriter, a handwriting app for pre-readers, we collaborated closely with our development team to design solutions that worked for passive tablet styluses.

Many of the educators we spoke to throughout the user testing phase noted that they didn't have the classroom funds to purchase new or updated tablets with active styluses.

We considered this an accessibility issue and worked with our development team to design solutions that would work within a known technical constraint.

When you view accessibility as a technology issue, it’s possible to incorporate the right questions into your user testing process to ensure compliance—and design more accessible products in the long run.

Consider whether your "UX problem" can be solved with a development fix

We’ve all had an unexpected problem crop up during user testing. 

But what seems like a user experience fix might instead be a technology fix.

For example, when Backpack Interactive designs a new onboarding process for teachers and administrators, we consider whether it’s appropriate for forms or data to auto-save throughout the process.

Onboarding for a new product can take educators a long time, and automatically saving forms throughout the process often improves UX. 

However, from a technology standpoint, auto-save is a heavy lift.

Without input from a technologist during the testing phase, it would be difficult to determine whether this “UX problem” could be solved efficiently on the backend.

Some product teams might even jump right into re-designing the interface—there goes your product timeline and design budget!

Sometimes a UX problem really is a technology problem. 

But you need to break down silos and set up collaboration processes with your development team to make sure you catch the difference.

Final Thoughts 

Whether you’re months away from generating user testing questions or getting ready to observe users, look for opportunities to listen, reflect, and collaborate with your development team.

By working together, you'll identify more innovative, user-centered technology and design solutions. 

You’ll also create a stronger EdTech product that makes a real impact on educators and learners

That’s the kind of learning tool destined to make a difference—and tick all the boxes for your stakeholders.

Do you need support collaborating with engineering throughout the user testing process? Contact Backpack Interactive below to find out how we can help!