The reality is that an idea isn't worth anything, it is just a thought, but once that idea is executed and made tangible, that is where the rubber hits the road. Software is no different, just a set of ideas executed for a computer and a user. The key is knowing which ideas are worth executing. Since software has a massive range of possibilities and is the culmination of hundreds of ideas, the best way to understand whether those ideas are working is to validate them through user testing. Start by validating ideas quick and fast through prototypes, as we discussed previously.
Hopefully, your hundreds of ideas are not hundreds of features but rather a bunch ideas that go into executing a few features meaningfully for your user. Prototyping, as we just discussed, is about making ideas tangible, but without testing the execution of a prototype, it is pointless. To build a prototype is to create a model to test your software idea. Testing is immensely helpful to...