Five well-conducted user tests are worth more than months of internal debate. The good news: you don't need a UX laboratory to do them correctly.
The founding principle of user testing is counterintuitive: you're not testing the user, you're testing the product. You observe how a real person uses the interface to accomplish a specific task. You don't ask what they'd like — you watch what they actually do. The difference is crucial: people are very poor at predicting their own behavior.
For an effective qualitative test, five participants suffice (Nielsen Norman Group rule). Beyond that, discoveries start repeating. Sessions last 45 to 60 minutes. Present scenarios, not features: 'You just received a defective order, what do you do?' — not 'Use the product return button.' Listen, take notes, don't guide. Silence is precious.
Tools: Maze and Lookback enable asynchronous remote tests, ideal for testing Figma prototypes. Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity capture session recordings in production to identify real friction points. For quick, free tests, a simple video call with screen sharing works fine. The most important thing is to do the tests — imperfectly rather than never.