In short: Test with 5 people from the same target group to find key insights.

Five per target group

When running a Design Sprint, I stick to testing with five different people from the same target group.

How to make it work with multiple target groups

For big organizations or services that involve multiple target groups, I use a 2 times 2 days Design Sprint structure. In between these sessions, there's more time for testing than the the one day testing from the original Design Sprint.

This approach allows me and the Design Sprint participants to test with various stakeholder and target groups the prototypes that we created. For each group (of users or stakeholders), we still test with at least five different people.

Why Five?

The idea behind testing with five people is inspired by the work of Nielsen Norman Group. There research seems to show that with 5 users tests the most important information and issues usually already come out.

The findings fit for usability studies, and Design Sprints are not exactly the same, but I feel it's still a good rule of thumb.

Made with AI help

This Q&A is based on a audio note (see below) I took while walking, that was then transcribed and improved with Audiopen. I then reviewed it and improved it before publishing it.