Different types of product testing and why they matter for product teams

This article will help you understand why product testing is so important across the whole product team, and which types of testing will work for you.

Why product testing is key for successful product management

As the old saying goes, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Product testing is crucial to measuring the success of your product ideas, product functionality, and product changes.

Strategic product testing helps PM teams to: 

• Unearth valuable insights to better understand your product and, more importantly, your customers

• Better meet user needs

• Remove blockers to convert, attract, and retain users

• Save time and resources by eliminating non-viable product ideas or prototypes early on 

• Gather clear data, and use it to make a case for stakeholder buy-in

• Ensure your product stays relevant in a changing marketplace

Regular product testing is the key to satisfying user needs, meeting business targets, and keeping the product team focused on the right initiatives. 

But remember: things change! Even if you’ve already done stellar research on your customers, competition, and current technologies, the product landscape is always evolving. To stay on top of customers’ shifting needs, you need a culture of product testing to test your assumptions.

What to keep in mind for successful product testing 

When to test in the product development process

The best product managers create a culture of product testing that keeps the whole team connected with product functionality and user needs at every stage.

But there are different schools of thought: 

• Product teams using a waterfall approach typically run initial testing of the market and product concept, then don’t test again until product development is complete. 

• Agile product teams engage in continuous testing to gather information at every stage of the product development process. They test early ideas and markets, prototypes and MVPs, and keep testing after release in a process of continuous discovery. Instead of waiting for a fully developed product, agile product management teams test every functional piece for quality within the development phase, checking new product iterations as they go. 

• The lean startup methodology promotes testing cycles built on 'build, measure, and learn' principles. Lean teams are engaged in a continuous feedback loop, testing everything they build and using the data to improve the next iteration. 

Whatever your preferred method, keep in mind that testing should be part of the full product lifecycle.

If you only test right before launch, you’ll find it’s often too late to make substantial changes to your product timeline, leaving you with a tough choice: go back to the drawing board and delay release, or push through with a product that may not resonate with your users.

How you’ll design your test 

To test effectively, you need to be clear on what you’re testing. 

Excellent test design starts with a strong research question—and your question should emerge from real user pain points and be as specific as possible.

For example, you might ask, “why are 40% of users not clicking on the new profile feature?” or “will the code for this upgrade allow users to more easily export their data?”

You can then develop a hypothesis to test, which could be something like: “if we integrate the new profile feature into the user dashboard, more users will click.”

You’ll also need to establish how you’ll track and measure results and determine the test parameters: 

• Which users your test will target 

• How long you’ll test for 

• Which metrics you’ll use to test quality, value, and user interest or purchase intent 

• Which resources and operational costs will be deployed

Which team members should be involved 

Traditional test methods often create silos between product development, product testing, and product management professionals, who are all involved at different stages of the process. 

With a substantial team devoted only to product testing, the development and management teams may hardly be involved in larger companies.

In an agile culture of continuous discovery, developers, software testers, and PMs work together to design and run effective product testing. DevOps teams combine development and operations efforts throughout the product lifecycle. 

Cross-functional collaboration is vital for product testing success. Aligning different team members on testing brings different perspectives and priorities to the testing design.

For example, if you work with the development team to turn product requirements into tests, you’ll end up with highly specific, actionable, technical test criteria.

Leading a team culture of product testing also keeps everyone connected with the product’s impact and user experience—which cultivates user empathy, improves motivation, and unearths new insights that enable iterative improvements to more effectively meet user needs with your product. 

When all product team members are involved in the testing process, responding to test data is smoother and faster.

How you’ll use the data

Gathering test data is one thing; using it is another.

Product managers are responsible for turning insights into action by using test results to guide development priorities, develop new solutions, and get buy-in from stakeholders. 

When you test different options—as with A/B or multivariate testing—it’s important not just to pick the winning option and forget about the test data: every experiment you run is an opportunity to learn something about your product and users. Decide how to preserve that knowledge and incorporate it into your product workflow and future product research. 

10 product testing methods: benefits and limitations

Deciding which type of product test to run depends on: 

• The kind of questions you need answers to

• The user base at your disposal

• The resources you have available 

• How far along you are in the development process

Make sure you consider the benefits and drawbacks of each. Here’s our breakdown of 10 key product testing methods:

1. Concept testing

Concept testing explores the viability of your initial product ideas. It’s a way of 'taking the temperature' on specific product concepts or directions, using written or oral presentations, surveys, paper prototypes, or wireframes. 

Benefits: 

• It’s a great way to decide whether to proceed with an idea before you’ve invested significant resources.

• Positive input can be used to get buy-in on your ideas.

• It often generates new insights, helping you better understand what your users need.

Limitations: 

• Users aren’t interacting with your actual product, so the results can be a little vague. 

• Concept tests can generate false positives—users who seem enthusiastic about your product ideas but may not be willing to invest their time or money in it. You can ask specific questions about purchase intent to try to limit this. 

2. QA testing

The quality of your product determines your users’ experience. 

Quality assurance testing is crucial throughout the product development process, usually performed in production or staging environments. It can involve creating and running test cases (like running through what happens if a user tries to use a feature but forgets to upload a necessary file); full-scale, in-depth regression testing for changes and features; performance testing; and sanity testing.

Benefits: 

• Learning whether the product operates as expected 

• Detecting bugs and defects quickly

• Insights into product functionality

• Avoiding user frustration by detecting blockers before launch

Limitations: 

• It’s functional testing rather than user testing, which means it won’t give you insights into real user experience or obstacles real users may encounter. 

3. A/B split testing 

A/B testing is a common test type that involves splitting your user base into two groups and giving them two versions of a product, site, or feature. There should only be a single variable, but it can be relatively minor (like using a different color button) or more significant (like a different feature hierarchy). The best A/B testing tools streamline or automate the process.  

Benefits: 

• Gives you clear answers to very specific product design questions

• Quick way of lowering the risk factor of new ideas

• Can be run with current product users

Limitations: 

• It only works for specific, single-variable testing goals. 

• It can be risky to try a potentially unpopular idea with half of your user base. 

• It can be resource-intensive to set up, and deciding on the variables is tricky. 

4. Multivariate testing

The principles of multivariate tests are similar to A/B tests, but while A/B tests only change one variable at a time, multivariate tests experiment with many variables or multiple segments of the user base. Multivariate tests try out different combinations of variables to determine which is the most effective. 

Benefits: 

• Saves time compared to running several A/B tests one after the other

• Gives you an overall sense of how much each variable contributes to the product experience

Limitations: 

• Since there are more variables to test than with A/B testing, each combination will be assigned to a smaller percentage of users, making the test process slower. 

• More complex results mean it may be difficult to make a confident decision based on the test process alone. 

5. Tree testing 

In tree testing methods, users are shown a streamlined sitemap with tree-like hierarchies. Then they're asked to complete specific tasks that test how easy it is to access the product functionality they need and offer insights into its navigability. 

Benefits: 

• Can give quick confirmation of whether the user journey and product navigability are clear 

• Shows what needs to be restructured or relabelled for optimal user experience 

• Quick tests that are easy to recruit for and offer clear answers to usability questions

Limitations: 

• Since users are shown a stripped-down product map, you don’t learn how they would navigate the full product with visual elements that could help or hinder their use. 

• Offers only quantitative data— you won’t get a sense of why users make certain choices or struggle to navigate. 

6. Card sorting 

Card sorting methods ask a group of test users to sort product or website navigation items into the categories they think make the most sense. 

In closed card sorting tests, users are given fixed categories and decide where to place each navigation item. In open card sorting tests, users create categories that seem logical to them. 

Benefits:  

• Gives you insight into how your users think, which can help you understand how to design better UX navigation but also to better understand their key needs 

• Quick, easy, low-resource exercise

Limitations: 

• You can’t always translate the results directly into your product’s navigation hierarchy since users aren’t asked to do tasks with the navigation items, just to sort them. 

• You’ll need more information to understand the context behind your test group’s decisions. 

7. Time-lapse testing

Time-lapse testing compares user experience metrics and product KPIs before and after a major product change has been released, to test whether the change has positively or negatively influenced user experience. 

Benefits: 

• Gives you critical insights into how your real users are responding to product changes 

• Allows you to show stakeholders the success of product changes 

• Negative data can alert you to possible issues with product changes 

Limitations: 

• There’s no clear causal relationship between user metrics and the product change as you’re testing in an uncontrolled environment with several variables. 

• Again, you won’t know why your users’ product experience has changed without collecting more qualitative data. 

8. Eye-tracking and mouse-tracking

Eye-tracking tests use advanced technology to monitor users’ eye movements while interacting with your product, typically using a headset. Results are represented on heatmaps that show you areas where users looked longest and the places where they lost interest. 

Click maps and scroll maps track the user’s mouse movements, showing where they click and scroll and how they engage with your product overall. 

Benefits: 

• Gives you a quick, highly visual overview of how users are behaving 

• Gives an objective account of user behavior 

• Alerts you to potential issues by showing you where users are dropping off

• Gives quantitative data that can help you justify where to prioritize resources 

• Raises questions that can be used to design more detailed surveys

Limitations: 

• Eye-tracking tools are costly, though mouse-tracking tools (like Hotjar's Heatmaps) are much more accessible and can be used to test your current users’ product experience. 

• The tests don't show you why users are behaving a certain way. 

• You’ll need to combine these tools with surveys or user interviews to get deep into the specifics of the user experience. 

9. Canary deployments

In canary deployments, product teams release a new feature to a small group of users at the start and monitor the product experience over a short period to collect data on how users are engaging. The user groups can be filtered according to different criteria—they can be early adopters, users from a specific industry or region, or a random subset. 

Benefits: 

• Offer real-world insights into how specific user groups respond to features

• Show performance issues that might have been missed in a staging or production environment 

• It’s easy to roll back to the previous version if there’s a strong negative response or if a major issue emerges

Limitations:

• The first 'canary' group may get frustrated by bugs and put off the new feature. This can be partially addressed by creating an opt-in program for early adopters who are aware they’re being used as testers. 

• Deploying two versions of the product side-by-side requires additional infrastructure investments and can take up the product team’s time and budget. 

10. User observation 

There’s no substitute for watching real people use your product or website. As well as gathering key data from their mistakes and frustrations, user observation tests get you closer to understanding what your real users experience. 

Benefits: 

• Tests product experience (PX) in a holistic way instead of just testing one specific element

• You see key blockers and bugs in action 

• Allows you to identify what’s working well by watching users who smoothly navigate the product

• Can build empathy with users

Limitations:

• In-person user observation tests require focus groups and can be time-consuming to arrange, not to mention you don’t see how users engage with the product in their home environment. Watching session recordings of real users can help you get around these limitations. 

• Without asking further questions, you still won’t understand the context or emotions behind your users’ product experience.

Combining controlled test methods with open-ended research

Product testing methods can offer you clear answers to specific questions to help you improve your users’ overall product experience. 

Controlled tests are critical to making key product decisions and feeling confident at product launch. 

But you should also gather open-ended data to put all of these different types of product testing into context. VoC data that tells you what your users are thinking and feeling helps you stay connected to users and learn why they struggle with particular features or iterations. 

User interviews and survey tools will truly test your assumptions and give the entire product team the insights they need to go beyond meeting basic user needs and generate real customer delight.