To gain a better sense of how teams' designs matched the actual experience of interacting with a lifebook, students focused on conducting some simple validity tests of their concepts.

Companies such as IDEO perform these kinds of tests on concepts to understand how well the product "story," or concept, communicates the value of what will be designed. Because the prototypes delivered by design students are demonstrational, rather than functional, teams essentially tested the value communicated by the concepts instead of the product functionality.

Teams then incorporated this feedback into a new iteration of product form and interface.