YOUTUBE TEST

(tool)

Brief description

Videos help us imagine and experience events, places, and devices that don’t yet exist- they help us pretend. This technique helps us bring to life product ideas that are not yet fully developed or widely available, so you can share them with your current or potential customers to collect data about the interest in your idea.

Step

Prototype Improvement

Input

Solutions that can benefit from being explain as a story or an experience

Output

Stories and Experiences that show how parts of a solution work together

Time

Preparation, high

Execution, 2 weeks posted online

Analysis, medium

Difficulty

5/5

People

8-20 (participants giving feedback)

2-5 (coordinators of the experiment)

Quick Guide

Create a video that shows your idea/solution or the experience you want to create.
Post your video in social media or a place where people can interact with it.
Allow people to post comments about the video. Collect online views, thumbs-up, or comments.
Understand if people want to learn more, share information, or prepay for the product (ex. join an Explorer Program, promote in social media, pre-order).
Collect skin in the game data (ex. # customers that sign for program, # posts in social media, # pre-orders, # people gave email to receive more information).

Benefits

Creates the illusion that your product works, even if you do not have a working product yet.
Simulates the functionality of any program or app without writing a single line of code.
Allows you to connect to other prototypes; ex have a link to a landing page with additional product information.
Test various stories or scenarios for marketing your idea.

Helpful Tips

Do not confuse evidence for initial levels of engagement and commitment vs evidence for repeated use and continued engagement.
The videos should be quick, easy, and inexpensive to create.
Only collecting views, thumbs-up or comments is not enough, you need to get evidence that people that want to invest something more (as money, time, reputation).