--- title: "Usability Testing for Startups | Utkarsh Panwar" description: "Usability testing for startups: five to eight moderated sessions on your riskiest flow, failure paths included, findings ranked by what they cost to fix." url: https://www.utkarshdesign.com/services/usability-testing author: Utkarsh Dhairya Panwar updated: 2026-10-08 --- # Usability testing for startups Service · Updated 8 Oct 2026 **I run small, moderated usability tests for startups: five to eight sessions on the one flow you can least afford to get wrong, with findings ranked by how cheap they are to fix. It takes about two weeks.** ## One flow, tested properly Most startups don't need a research programme. They need to know, before engineering spends a sprint, whether real people can get through the flow that makes or loses money: checkout, the first integration, an invite, a failed payment. So I keep the scope small on purpose. I pick one flow with you, write tasks that mirror what users come to do, and watch five to eight people try them. By the fifth session the same problems usually repeat. If they don't, I add a few sessions instead of guessing. - A seed or Series A team about to build or rebuild a flow, with a prototype or a staging build. - A live product where the funnel shows a drop and nobody can explain it. - A team planning a redesign that wants to know which parts of the old flow people rely on. ## Test the failures as well as the happy path A demo account never shows you a timeout or a bank decline. At FamPay I built a prototype path for each failure on iOS and asked people to complete payments I knew would fail. Then I watched what they tapped next and asked what they thought had happened to their money. The useful findings sat around the payment form rather than on it: a retry that wasn't clearly offered, or a screen that said too little about the payment's state. The payment failure guide has the full set of changes and what they did to drop-off. [The FamPay case study](https://www.utkarshdesign.com/work/fampay): Payment errors and the Cashback Store voucher flow, from finding to shipped screens. ## What you get - A test plan: the flow, the questions it should answer and who to recruit (your own users where possible). - A clickable prototype or a script for your staging build, with a path for each failure state worth testing. - Five to eight moderated remote sessions of about 30 to 45 minutes each, recorded. - A findings sheet listing every issue with the screen, what people did, how many hit it and a suggested fix. - Findings ranked by fix cost: copy changes first, then layout changes, with anything that needs backend work flagged on its own. - Redesigned screens for the top two or three problems, so the work doesn't stop at the report. ## How the two weeks run 1. **Days 1 to 2: pick the flow**: A call to agree the riskiest flow and the questions. If you have support tickets and funnel data, I read them to choose the tasks. 2. **Days 3 to 5: build and recruit**: I get the prototype or script ready, staged failures included. You send the invites to users, and I can help write the message. 3. **Days 6 to 9: sessions**: Five to eight sessions, and your team is welcome to watch live. Watching two sessions changes more minds than any report. 4. **Day 10: findings**: A walkthrough of the ranked findings and the redesigned screens, plus all the recordings. If recruiting is slow, I stretch the calendar and keep the agreed scope. B2B users with admin roles are usually the slowest to book. ## When to skip it If you need numbers you can trust statistically, like which of two pricing pages converts better, run an A/B test instead of five sessions. If the whole product is unclear rather than one flow, an expert review is faster and cheaper: I'd start with a UX audit and test only the riskiest step it finds. If you're pre-product, interviews come before any test; my user interview questions template covers how to run them. I don't run large unmoderated panels or survey research. To start, email work@utkarshdesign.com with the flow you're worried about and a link to the product or prototype. ## Questions people ask ### How many users do I need for a usability test? Five to eight for one flow. Problems start repeating by the fifth session. If they don't, the flow probably means different things to different user types, and I test each type separately. ### Can you recruit participants for us? Your own users are almost always better, so I help you write the invite and choose who to ask. For a pre-launch product, people from your network or community who match your target users work. ### Do we need a finished product to test? No. A clickable prototype is enough, and testing before you build is cheaper. I tested the FamPay failure paths as prototypes before engineering built them. ### Do you run sessions outside India? Yes. Sessions are remote, moderated in English and scheduled in your users' time zone. ## Sources 1. [Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5-users/), Nielsen Norman Group 2. [Quantitative vs. Qualitative Usability Testing](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/quant-vs-qual/), Nielsen Norman Group 3. [Heuristic Evaluations: How to Conduct](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-to-conduct-a-heuristic-evaluation/), Nielsen Norman Group ## Start a project Tell me what you're building and where it's stuck: [book a 30-minute call](https://cal.com/utkarsh-design/30min), email [work@utkarshdesign.com](mailto:work@utkarshdesign.com) or [send a brief](https://www.utkarshdesign.com/contact). ## Related - [Usability testing script template](https://www.utkarshdesign.com/templates/usability-test-script) - [How to run usability testing on a budget](https://www.utkarshdesign.com/guides/usability-testing-startups) - [UX audit vs usability testing: which to do first](https://www.utkarshdesign.com/compare/ux-audit-vs-usability-testing) - [Payment failure UX for timeouts, declines and retries](https://www.utkarshdesign.com/guides/payment-failure-ux) --- Utkarsh Dhairya Panwar, Founding Product Designer and Design Engineer (IIT Roorkee; Founding Designer at CodeAnt AI, YC W24). Email: work@utkarshdesign.com · Book a call: https://cal.com/utkarsh-design/30min · Hire: https://www.utkarshdesign.com/hire · About: https://www.utkarshdesign.com/llms.txt