Play is a powerful tool to use for designing and prototyping your mobile product, but it’s also a great way to test your ideas with users, where they can experience your designs directly on their device, like a true native app.

Getting your design into your users’ hands is easy with Play: just create a share link. If the user doesn’t have Play installed, they will be prompted to install it, but they do not need to create an account or give any information at all. Immediately after installing Play, they will see the prototype you have sent to them.

Below are some best practices and tips.

To help the moderator see what the user is doing, turn on “Show Touch Indicator” in the More tab. This will show a translucent green dot on the screen wherever a user touches it.

Outside of Play, on their Apple device, you can ask your user to record their screen. They should make sure to turn “Microphone On” by long pressing the record screen button, so you can hear their thoughts as you watch their Touch Indicator move.

If you want to test different versions of your design using Play, you can duplicate your project and create two shared links, one for each project version. You can then make changes to one of the projects. Make sure to name them appropriately to avoid confusion.

You can send both shared links to the user so they can interact with both and share their feedback and preferences. You can also split your users into multiple groups and test one design with one group and the other design with the other group. Both are easy with Play!

Shared links update in real time, which can create a lot more flexibility when testing. If you see a mistake or want to make a mid-interview edit, you can quickly change things in Play and your user will see the changes reflected on their device in real time. Play makes it easier to iterate in the moment, so you don’t have to schedule round after round of user testing to validate small changes.