Why Early Formative Testing Saves Time, Money and Risk
In embedded systems development, especially in domains where usability impacts safety, performance or regulatory compliance, developers often wait until the software is polished before bringing in real users. But that approach has drawbacks, often leading to architectural rework and verification delays.
If users are brought into the process late, once software appears finished, design decisions are already set in stone. Any eleventh-hour changes needed to address workflow or usability flaws are extremely expensive to make, often prohibitively so.
Early formative testing offers an alternative.
Rather than holding out for mature software, you can test early concepts, behaviors and task flows before code commits stack up. Early formative testing reduces risk, accelerates alignment between design and engineering, and ensures that your product behaves the way users expect, long before code is committed. This type of testing is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce risk while accelerating development.
When you run formative tests before development, you:
- Eliminate expensive rework
- Shorten development cycles
- Limit QA surprises
- Gain clarity before committing code
Speed Development with Fast, Testable Prototypes
Embedded software rarely behaves linearly. Users encounter asynchronous data changes, hardware-related events, modal transitions, confirmation logic and real-world timing. Tasks involving safety checks, high cognitive load, multiple decision points or complex transitions tend to hide the most significant risks, and are the most expensive to rework once code is written.
Early formative testing is especially powerful if you lean into a few core practices. These include validating user needs before architecture is locked in, which helps uncover structural issues while they’re still inexpensive to address. Stress-testing the workflows with the highest safety or cognitive load reveals where usability risks actually live. And moving beyond static clickthroughs to simulate real system states exposes device behaviors and timing-dependent logic that Figma alone can’t surface.
By using rapid, testable prototypes, your stakeholders can see, touch and evaluate real interactions early in the development cycle. In turn you can validate assumptions, close gaps and refine usability in near real time.
This process works best when the interactive prototypes provide just enough structure to let users reveal how they think the system should behave. Because the design isn’t yet locked in and the underlying logic hasn’t been built, you can address user feedback in a meaningful way, adjusting hierarchy, terminology and task sequences without disrupting the project timeline.
HMI Accelerator Quickly Turns Design Assets into Functioning Prototypes
One option for creating a rapid prototype is by leveraging ICS' HMI Accelerator, a suite of low-code tools that reduce development time, minimize errors and align design with implementation. It incorporates a best-in-class Figma importer, pre-defined architecture and road-tested software modules. And its auto-generated simulator provides rapid UI validation, helping to inform decision making and paving the way for continuous iteration.
By integrating test automation and documentation generation, the HMI Accelerator supports a fast, feedback-driven development loop so you can catch issues early. For regulated or safety-critical products, this documentation becomes part of a defensible narrative that supports quality assurance and regulatory submissions. Instead of scrambling to justify decisions late in the process, you will enter verification with a clear usability story already in place.
Build Better Products with Early User Feedback
With foundational UX decisions validated, documented and aligned with real-world behavior through early formative testing, projects move much more smoothly. If you’re eager to strengthen your own testing practices, download a copy of our guide Formative Testing: Top 10 Ways to Cut Risk & Accelerate Development. From validating user needs before architecture is locked in to building traceable evidence for regulatory review, the guide outlines practical steps you can take to move faster, avoid late-stage surprises and build with confidence.