In our series on startup hints & tricks here tips 15 & 16:

15 – Do usability testing

All your mockups (previous post) will not protect you from completely and utterly misrepresent what users really want the application to behave.

There is only one way to get to the point here: Do usability tests. You will have a very bad day that day. Your testers will not find that button you specially designed and argued so much about, they will be utterly lost in the application although you thought that the information architecture is so simple an clean.

Yet that is the way an application is perceived. Better listen early and often and adapt your approach.

Even if it requires a dose of masochism Usability Tests help!

16 – Consider using agile development methods (such as scrum)

The traditional waterfall methods for project management have much for them: Tested for centuries. That’s how big engineering feats have been delivered, or so they make us believe.

The other day the 40th birthday of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission was commemorated.The mission nearly ended in catastrophe after an explosion cut oxygen supply. Up there and down at mission control in Houston they had to come up with solutions fast. Improvisation was l’ordre du jour.

Both methods have something for them. For any startup it’s probably okay to apply a bit of both. You don’t want to get bogged down with development cycles that last months, neither with the improvisation à la Apollo 13.

In our case we employ Scrum as an agile development method. Other such methods are around. The basic thing it does: It forces you to be honest in short cycles (two weeks in our case). After each two week segment we know where we stand.