What it took to create a click dummy to validate a marketplace concept
I seem to work on a startup idea every year since 2018. Luckily, I picked up a few tricks and tools on the way. In Q2 2022 — a year ago — I worked on a marketplace idea. I had enrolled in an accelerator program and wanted to bring a marketplace for preloved fashion to life. Once I had gone through the usual steps of ensuring product-market fit (conducted 15 qualitative interviews, completed a pitch deck, drafted an excel file with “nice to have” versus “essential” product features), my peers and my pitch coach suggested a click dummy.
According to pharmaceutical company Merck’s UX online design resource, a click dummy is a “prototype of a website or smartphone application that has been brought to life to deal with the user’s experience at an early stage” (link). Startup schools and accelerators teach first-time and repeat entrepreneurs to create simple prototypes. The objective is to test product ideas early on to validate customer pain points and receive feedback.
It’s simply not efficient to create a fully-fledged product that no one will use — developing a simple prototype to gain feedback is sufficient.
When it comes to prototyping, speed and simplicity are key. There are cost-effective tools to do so:
Draw wireframes as a way to convey the basic layout and features
Create a sketch of your prototype on paper
Cook up several slides (in PPT) to make your prototype come to life.
I opted for a more comprehensive mockup when choosing a click dummy. It was far from a “rudimentary functional mockup” which “represents an exemplary sequence of interactions based on a logical screen flow” (link).
By working with a skilled UX/ UI consultant (profile link), I co-created a click dummy that depicted the customer journey and highlighted product features mimicking the look and feel of existing marketplaces.
The overall process took longer than making mockup sketches on paper. I created a mockup in PPT and shared it with the UX/ UI consultant. In addition, I provided her with a self-curated collection of pictures in Unsplash (the collection is available here), minimal design guidelines and screenshots of marketplaces I liked.
The UX / UI consultant used Figma to bring the marketplace to life and show the product features. We had several rounds of iterations, mainly consisting of adapting process flows and using pictures reflecting the inclusive nature of the marketplace. This picture shows the sequence of interactions in Figma.
Focus on process flow(s): I did not invest time into sophisticated design or a look & feel that veered from well-know online marketplaces like Ebay, Vinted (European marketplace), or Vestiaire Collective. Quite the contrary, I took screenshots of their layout, inserted it into my mockup PPT and then added features to it. The design guidelines for the UX/ UI designer were minimal: I called the marketplace “Reperio”, created a logo online (cost: USD 5), informed her of website colors.
Getting the landing page right as part of the click dummy mattered a lot to me. The landing page needed to convey the marketplace’s USP: two distinctly different services (buying & selling clothes AS WELL AS booking repair and drycleaning services).
I required feedback from potential customers: did they like both service offerings? Was it easily understandable that the marketplace consisted of two in one? Would they use both? How much were they willing to pay?
As you might recall from the prototype view in Figma (see below), these two pages constituted merely the first in a step of sequence of interactions. They ranged from (customer) onboarding to (selecting) product details to (choosing) repair and drycleaning servives. I did have a fully-fledged click dummy.
There are pros and cons of a fleshed out click dummy: you can ask potential customers for very detailed feedback on product features. That’s a plus. On the other hand, there isn’t much space left for imagination. You may not give potential customers enough opportunities to give you a notion of more efficient (read: shorter) customer journeys. And product features they’d like.
In terms of vision and “vibe” of the marketplace, it was crucial for me to also test the following:
1. Overall product philosophy (e.g. using the adjective “preloved” and not “second hand”, “vintage” or “used”)
2. Depicting a heterogeneous customer group (inclusivity).
The below shows some of the pictures (from Unsplash) I used on the website to ensure inclusiveness and diversity.
As explained throughout the article, the objective of the click dummy was to collect feedback from potential customers on process flows and product features. I do not discuss the feedback process in detail in this article on purpose — getting the feedback process right is a science in itself :-).