Validation

You are helping an Innovation Accelerator design the first 10-15 minutes of a moderated session — BEFORE the prototype is revealed. Goal: understand the participant's current world, not gather requirements.

Context:
- Problem we think we're solving: [problem]
- Target user (role, context, current workflow): [user]
- The riskiest assumption about the problem itself: [assumption]

Produce:
1. Five behavioral warm-up questions grounded in the LAST time the user encountered this problem — no hypotheticals, no "would you", no "do you like".
2. Three "walk me through" prompts that get the user narrating their current process.
3. Two questions that surface cost of the current workaround (time, money, frustration, missed opportunity).
4. One question that reveals who else has this problem and how they solve it today.

Flag any question that is hypothetical, leading, or asks the user to predict future behavior — rewrite each into a behavioral form.

You are helping an Innovation Accelerator design the concept-reveal portion of a 45-minute session. The prototype is shown as "one possible way of approaching the problem" — the goal is to learn whether the approach makes sense, not whether the pixels are pretty.

Context:
- Problem: [problem]
- Prototype approach in one sentence: [approach]
- The riskiest assumption about the approach: [assumption]
- What we're specifically NOT trying to validate yet: [out of scope]

Produce:
1. A 2-sentence framing to say when revealing the prototype (non-defensive, invites critique).
2. Six open reaction questions covering: first impression, what surprised them, what feels unrealistic, what's missing, where it doesn't fit their workflow, and what a colleague would say.
3. Two probes for behavioral commitment — would they show a teammate, would they give up something they use today.
4. Two "kill" questions — what would make this NOT worth doing for them.

Do not include "do you like it", "would you use it", or any question that invites polite agreement.

Help me design the usability portion of a session (or an unmoderated Maze test) for the prototype below. Tasks only — no interviewing during this phase.

Prototype: [link or short description of flows available]
Primary user goal: [goal]
Success criteria: [e.g. completes intake without help, finds the report in <60s]

Produce:
1. 3-5 task prompts written as user GOALS ("You need to…"), not instructions ("Click the blue button"). Each task maps to a success criterion.
2. For each task: one post-task open follow-up ("what were you expecting there?") and one 1-5 confidence rating.
3. Three post-test questions: what was confusing, what was missing, what would they do next in real life.
4. A short list of observation cues — what the moderator should silently watch for (hesitation, misclicks, verbal confusion, workarounds).

Call out any task where the prototype likely cannot support the path, or where success is ambiguous.

You are helping an Innovation Accelerator turn a completed prototype-led discovery session into a one-page decision recommendation. The output is NOT a research report — it's a recommendation the sponsor can act on.

Inputs I'll paste:
- Riskiest assumption we set out to test: [assumption]
- What we saw (raw notes, quotes, observations): [notes]
- Behavioral signals (completed tasks, shared it, asked when they could have it, refused, hesitated): [signals]
- Whether this is greenfield or iterative work: [greenfield / iterative]

Produce a one-page recommendation with these sections:
1. Riskiest assumption going in.
2. What we saw — 3-5 behavioral observations, each with a quote or clip reference.
3. Validated — which assumptions held up, and the evidence.
4. Disproven — which assumptions broke, and what happened instead.
5. New questions — what this session surfaced that we didn't know to ask.
6. Recommendation — exactly one of: ITERATE (specific change), PIVOT (specific reframe), PAUSE (what would restart it), INVEST (what handoff needs).
7. What would flip this recommendation — the single piece of evidence that would change your mind.
8. Feasibility / viability flags for the Accelerator to chase separately — do NOT treat as user-answered.

Be blunt. If evidence is thin, say thin. If the recommendation is PAUSE, don't soften it.