Module 3 · Components and prototypes Lesson 9 of 15
Clickable prototypes and testing with five people
Five testers find most of the obvious problems. Watching someone fail where you expected them to succeed is the fastest design lesson available.
The concept
A clickable prototype is your design wired together so somebody can use it without you narrating. In Figma, connect the screens on the key actions and present it on a phone. Five testers find about eighty per cent of usability problems, and the first tester alone finds a third of them.
Give the person a task, not instructions: "find a job in Pune and apply for it". Then say nothing. Watch where they hesitate, where they click the wrong thing and where they ask you a question — every question is a design bug, because in a real product nobody is sitting beside them.
Give a TASK, not instructions: "Find a job in Pune and apply for it."
Then say nothing.
Watch for:
hesitation -> unclear hierarchy
wrong click -> a misleading label
a question -> a design bug (nobody sits beside them in real life)
5 testers find ~80% of problems. Fix what appears twice first.Common mistakes
The mistake is explaining the interface while they use it. Every sentence you say is a piece of design you did not have to explain away. Keep a sheet of paper, write down the moment each tester hesitated, and fix the three that appeared twice before polishing anything else.
Worked example
A tester who pauses on a button does not read the label out; a tester who says "I thought this would take me back" has found a navigation problem no mockup review ever would.
Your practice task
Prototype your main flow, watch five people complete one task each, and log every hesitation without defending the design.
Do this before moving on. Reading a solution teaches the shape of it; typing it teaches you.
Key takeaway
A clickable prototype is your design wired together so somebody can use it without you narrating.
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