Product & Service Testing
Find out how a product or service feels to use before wider production, rollout or investment.
LENs brings Experts by Experience into structured testing for vendors, innovators and service teams. They can comment on usability, dignity, safety, accessibility and how well an idea fits the setting in which people will encounter it. Testing can take place in person or remotely, using questions and criteria agreed with your team.
The organisational need
A product may work as intended and still be awkward, uncomfortable or difficult to use in practice. A service journey may look straightforward on paper but create extra steps, confusion or loss of dignity for the person moving through it.
Testing with Experts by Experience brings those practical questions into the development process. It gives your team feedback from people who understand health and social care through direct experience, at a point when there may still be time to make changes.
What the service includes
Experts by Experience can explore how a product is handled, understood and experienced in the setting where it may be used. The testing brief sets the questions and the parts of the experience that need attention.
Testing can look at how someone moves through a proposed service, from the information they receive to the steps they are expected to take. Feedback can identify friction, uncertainty and practical access issues.
Early testing can be used to challenge assumptions before a wider pilot, production run or implementation decision. Rapid-turnaround options may be available for time-sensitive pilots, subject to scope and availability.
Where relevant to the brief, testing can consider how easy information, instructions or an interface is to understand and use. The scope will define what is being reviewed and the type of feedback required.
Clear boundaries
LENs provides lived experience feedback. The service does not replace formal clinical validation, regulatory approval, technical safety testing, legal review or a certified accessibility audit. Your written scope will define the boundaries of the work.
Who participates
The current offer uses two or three Experts by Experience for structured testing. LENs supplies the contributors for the agreed brief.
Before testing begins, LENs will agree the questions, feedback criteria, format and practical arrangements with your team. Contributors receive the context they need without being steered towards a preferred answer.
Delivery process
Book a call and talk us through the product, service or idea, its intended users, its current stage and the decision the testing needs to inform.
LENs helps turn your questions into a focused brief. Together, we agree the feedback criteria, testing format, boundaries and the outputs you need.
LENs prepares a scope covering the activity, number of contributors, practical arrangements, timings and reporting. We review it with you before testing begins.
Two or three Experts by Experience take part in the agreed activity, in person or remotely. Feedback is gathered against the agreed questions while leaving room for issues your team may not have anticipated.
LENs organises the feedback into a usable output and talks it through with the relevant people. Any rapid follow-up or further round of testing will be agreed separately.
Deliverables
The current LENs service offer supports:
The scope will state what is being tested, the stage of development, the number of sessions and the form of the final feedback.
Safeguards and participation
LENs will agree access needs, confidentiality, handling of prototypes or sensitive information, session boundaries and contributor support before testing begins. The arrangements will reflect the product, setting and level of risk involved.
Common questions
If your question is more specific, tell us about the work and we can discuss it directly.
Ask a questionThe service can cover products, service journeys, prototypes, pilots, information and other materials intended for health or social care settings. We will confirm whether the work is in scope after an initial call.
Contact LENs while there is still room to act on the feedback. This may be during early design, before a pilot, during refinement or before wider production or rollout.
The current offer uses two or three Experts by Experience for structured testing. The written scope will confirm the number for your project.
Yes. Testing can take place in person or remotely. The right format depends on what is being tested and the experience your team needs to understand.
Rapid-turnaround options may be available for time-sensitive pilots. Availability and the final timetable depend on the brief, access to the product or service and the work required.
No. LENs provides lived experience feedback within the agreed brief. Formal certification, regulatory approval, technical safety testing and certified accessibility audits sit outside this service.
Yes. Product testing may form one part of a wider research, evaluation or co-production project. LENs can scope the services together and put the full arrangement in writing.
Related services
Next step
Tell us what you are developing and which decision the feedback needs to inform. LENs will help define the questions, recommend a testing approach and prepare the written scope.