Validation talks

Validation is the work of checking whether an idea holds up before investing heavily in it. Does the problem exist? Do people want this solution? Will they use it the way we expect? Interviews, prototypes, experiments and usage data are all ways of collecting that evidence.

In product design, validation guards against a common failure: building something well that nobody needs. It is a central part of Lean UX and Lean Startup, where teams aim to learn as early and cheaply as possible.

The three talks here look at validation from different directions. Tomer Sharon talks about perfectly executing the wrong plan at Google I/O in 2014. Anders Toxboe argues to experiment to innovate at GOTO in 2019, and Julie Zhuo explains how a Facebook designer thinks.