The worst something looks, the better the feedback people will give. Don’t spend time polishing the design of your minimum viable product. It could hurt the quality of feedback you get.
This was my main takeaway when I read a quote from Chris Thoen, managing director of Global Open Innovation at Procter & Gamble. At the time, he was gathering feedback by giving consumers cheap prototypes that were literally held together by duct tape. These prototypes would physically fall apart in five minutes after consumers would touch them. Here’s what Thoen said about feedback for these cheap prototypes.
The level of feedback you get is so much more valuable and impactful…. The problem with showing something to consumers when it’s almost totally done, people don’t necessarily want to give negative feedback that that point because it looks like, “This company has spent a lot of money already getting it to this stage and now I’m going to tell them, ‘It sucks.'” On the other hand, if something hangs together with tape, and it’s clear that it’s an early prototype, the mindset of consumers often is, “These people still need some help, so let me tell you what I really think about it.”
I found this quote in “Little Bets” by Peter Sims. The book is fantastic. It’s a must read.