4 myths about product velocity that are costing you time and money
In product development, speed is king—until it isn’t.
Everyone wants to build faster. But rushing without the right insights? That’s how you end up causing friction points, customer frustration, and design reworks. When it comes to product development, speed done wrong will only hinder progress and cause delays. Yet, the same objections keep showing up in meetings:
- “We don’t have time to test.”
- “We already know what users want.”
- “We’ll fix it post-launch.”
Sound familiar?
These myths aren’t just harmless beliefs, they’re silent blockers that cost your team time, money, and user trust. That’s why leading product development teams take the necessary steps to not fall into the trap of product velocity.
Let’s break down the four biggest misconceptions about product velocity and what to do instead.
Myth 1: “Testing slows us down”
The myth: Testing takes too long. It gets in the way of sprint cycles. It’s not worth it unless the company is launching a full feature.
The truth: Usability tests today take hours—not weeks. You can run a five-question usability test in the morning and apply the insights by lunch.
Skipping testing doesn’t speed you up; it delays the inevitable. You’ll either fix issues now or spend weeks cleaning up the fallout later.
Every usability test, either moderated or unmoderated, increases the odds that your team is building the right thing the first time. Instead of debating opinions in meetings, you get real-world feedback that saves you from going back to the drawing board later.
Moderated tests allow you to dive deeper into user behavior in real-time, perfect for uncovering nuanced usability issues or testing prototypes with incomplete flows. Unmoderated tests, on the other hand, scale quickly and help identify broad patterns fast. Both types generate actionable insights that directly influence wireframes, product design, and development priorities.
What to do instead:
Build testing into your existing workflow. Start with small-scope tests—button labels, microcopy, and flows. Incorporate feedback from both moderated and unmoderated tests into product design.
With unmoderated tests, you can quickly validate design variations at scale, offering fast, cost-efficient feedback on layouts, copy, and flows. Moderated tests go deeper, allowing real-time observation of user thought processes and capturing subtle friction points that automated tools may miss.
Guide
How to build customer-centric products without slowing down development
Myth 2: “We’ll fix it after we launch”
The myth: Product launches are supposed to be rough. We’ll polish things once we’re live.
The truth: The “fix it later” mindset is expensive and risky. Issues that slip through pre-launch testing often balloon into lost users, negative reviews, and technical debt.
And users aren’t waiting around. According to Zendesk, more than 50% of users say they’ve abandoned a digital product after just one frustrating experience.
First impressions are everything in the digital world. If users hit a snag early on—whether it's confusing navigation or unclear copy—they’re likely to bounce and not return. Pre-launch testing helps catch these red flags when they’re still easy to fix, preserving user trust from the get-go.
Even small usability issues—like unclear CTA text or inconsistent iconography—can create hesitation and erode confidence in your product. By testing before launch, teams can validate assumptions about user expectations and correct misalignments in UX design, ensuring smoother onboarding, higher retention, and reduced support requests.
What to do instead:
Bake micro-validations into your roadmap. Pre-launch and test the essentials: flow logic, visual clarity, copy tone. Add a “pause-and-test” checkpoint before each release to ensure you're not rushing out usability friction points.
Myth 3: “We already know what users want”
The myth: Between data analytics, product management intuition, and past research, we’ve got a solid idea of what’s needed.
The truth: Even the best instincts are still guesses. And past data points do not predict current customer behavior. What worked a year ago might flop today.
More importantly, your internal team is not your user. How they perceive and react towards your products may not be the same as what your customers experience. This is called the experience gap.
Product, design, and engineering teams are immersed in the language, goals, and systems of the company. But customers operate from a completely different context. They don't have the internal knowledge or shortcuts teams rely on. Without real user input, teams risk building features that technically work but feel confusing or irrelevant to the people they’re meant to serve.
That's why external perspectives are invaluable. They help you identify confusing flows, vague labels, or missing context that seem obvious to your team but not to your users.
What to do instead:
Pair qualitative insights (like user interviews or video feedback) with quantitative data (like click maps or heatmaps). Include your users in decision-making, even in small ways. Quick tests on labels, flows, or homepage hierarchy can unlock insights you never expected.
Myth 4: “Product managers can also play the role of UX”
The myth: Our product managers (PMs) can handle some UX, it’s not rocket science.
The truth: When PMs wear too many hats, user experience often becomes reactive instead of strategic. A PM juggling strategy, stakeholder alignment, and roadmap ownership doesn’t have the space to deeply empathize with users. It’s about having a more focused approach to product development.
Businesses should have a dedicated UX or product development team in order to truly capture the experience of your end-user. When UX is sidelined, it often results in inconsistent interfaces and disconnected customer journeys. These issues compound over time, leading to lower user satisfaction and increased churn.
PMs may cover the basics, but without dedicated UX expertise, it’s easy to miss the subtle but critical elements that make experiences user-friendly and enjoyable.
What to do instead:
Support your PMs with the right tools, not more job titles. Platforms like UserTesting give product teams direct access to customer insight that empowers your research team. Treat UX like a function, not a favor. The payoff? Fewer surprises and happier users.
Build fast, and smart
Speed isn’t the enemy. But speed without clarity? That’s a liability.
Top-performing teams aren’t just moving quickly, they’re moving intelligently. They build feedback loops into every phase, test early and often, and use real user insight to stay on track.
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