This guide explains the different types of design tests and what needs to be considered.
Corporate logo, claim, out-of-home advertising, online ads or packaging - in the most cases it is not easy to communicate a brand identity or its benefit to the target group. This is exactly why you should ask your target group for a design test and not leave design and creative decisions to your instincts. After all, good design determines the consumer's attention, recognition and buying decision. And who better to tell which design or which advertising measure is effective than your own target group?
With Appinio, designs can be iteratively tested until the perfect solution is available.
No matter which design test you conduct - whether you want to test a logo, a film trailer or an online ad: The questionnaire structure is always identical. At the end of this page we will show you how a questionnaire for a design test can look like.
In this article, our market research experts from Appinio explain in detail what needs to be considered for various design tests:
The logo of a company is the face of a company to the outside world and the central branding element of a corporate identity. Therefore, it must be eye-catching and easily recognizable. Importantly, it should also reflect the personality and values of a brand.
A slogan or claim represents a product or a brand and expresses the brand promise in a shortened form for the consumer. A claim should not only be catchy, but, most importantly, correctly understood by the target group. In our studies, we have found out that this is definitely not always the case. Many brands operating in Germany, for example, rely on English claims without investigating whether the target group understands them at all. Douglas' "Come in and find out" is just one example of many misinterpreted claims.
You want to test claims? In our Appinio-Dashboard you will find a sample survey.
By using spot tests you can find out whether the advertising medium appeals to your target group and whether they recognise what is advertised. Generally, there is always potential for optimisation in design tests. Of course, a spot, whether for video advertising, TV, radio or cinema, does not have to be finished for a survey. Test your versions to find out which creative performs best depending on the objective.
You want to test your spot? In our Appinio Dashboard you will find a questionnaire template and a sample survey.
Test your advertising motives in advance and ask your target group how they like different versions, what they associate with each, whether it triggers curiosity and the intended action, such as a product purchase, an app download or an online shop visit.
A product must look appealing so that the buyer shows interest and later becomes a regular customer. Which design variants appeal to customers? Does the product design correspond to the brand, does it lead to the right associations? All this can be tested in a product design test.
People often shop visually and spontaneously. Accordingly, packaging design is important for the purchase decision. The appearance of your product and the information on the packaging can decide whether it ends up in the shopping cart. With an eye-catching packaging design that appeals to the target group, you have the opportunity to set yourself apart from the competition on the shelf. So what could be more obvious than getting feedback directly from the target group on different packaging designs to increase the purchasing probability?
You want to test your packaging or product design? In our Appinio Dashboard you will find a questionnaire template and a sample survey
Both monadic and semi-monadic surveys are used for a design test. How the two are defined and which effects the two have will be explained here:
In monadic tests, each participant in a survey is only asked about one survey object. In the case of a design test this means he is asked about one logo variant, advertising medium or film trailer etc. Semi-monadic testing, on the other hand, means that each survey participant is asked about several survey objects. The same questionnaire is therefore completed several times within one survey.
With semi-monadic surveys there is the risk that the survey participant is influenced by the first survey object and evaluates all subsequent survey objects in relation to it. For this reason in semi-monadic tests the questions for the different designs are created in blocks and these blocks are then randomized. This avoids, at least to a certain extent, a sequence effect among the respondents.
Another disadvantage of semi-monadic tests is that the questionnaire is significantly longer than in a monadic test. The more objects are tested within a survey, the less detailed questions can be asked as the participants might lose interests after evaluating multiple versions of a design for example. Thus, in a semi-monadic test, one should try to keep the questionnaire as short as possible.
The big advantage of monadic tests is that individual evaluations of the survey participants are more meaningful because their opinion is not influenced by different survey objects. Furthermore, the questionnaire is much shorter.
For a design test we recommend monadic surveys. This is especially important for spot tests, for example for videos or film trailers as the evaluation of these creatives requires a lot of attention and concentration from the respondents.