The design discovery marks the first phase of a design project, typically initiated by varying types of problems and involving teams of different sizes with various roles. Every design discovery phase has two goals: first, to understand the problem space, and second, to achieve the desired outcome.
Designers are often thrust into the discovery phase or asked by product managers to quickly conduct a design discovery due to time and budget constraints. It’s all too common to witness designers start by sketching wireframes, constructing paper prototypes or outlining interaction flows to test or validate. While this approach may seem like an efficient plan to explore different ideas, save costs and expedite the launch of a feature or product, it’s essential to pause and ask critical questions:
- Who is the target audience for this feature or project?
- What problem will this feature or product solve for the users or customers?
In this blog, I will outline a step-by-step approach to utilising the design discovery phase wisely and achieve decent outcomes in a short time.
Nothing slows down design and development projects as much as arguing over personal opinions or wasting effort solving the wrong problem.
Who should be involved in the discovery phase?
- User researcher/designer
- Team lead
- Product owner/Product sponsor
- Subject matter experts (SMEs)
- Technical expert
- Business analyst
What tools can you use in a remote work situation?
Depending on your company or customer’s IT policies, you can leverage the following tools:
- Collaboration tools — Microsoft Teams, Google Meet (G-suite), Zoom
- Remote workshop tools — Miro and Mural
- User testing and recruitment tools — usertesting.com, user zoom and dscout
Conduct a kick-off meeting
During the kick-off meeting, delve into the following key topics:
- Define the problem — Understand the core need underlying the problem before jumping to a solution.
- Assess impact — Understand the perspectives of users and other stakeholders to grasp the potential impact if the problem isn’t addressed.
- Project vision — Define the project vision to align with stakeholders’ expections post-project completion.
- Project objectives — Determine the key objectives this project will prove or disprove, along with how to measure these outcomes.
- Timeframe — Clearly establish the project’s timeframe to ensure timely delivery
- Out of scope — Engage stakeholders in defining what is out of scope, maintaining clarity on project boundaries. Address any new discoveries during the discovery phase that were not initially considered.
- Risk assessment — Identify and define the risks involved in successfully delivering the project. Revisit this question during the project to stay on track.
- Priorities? — Collaborate with stakeholders to prioritise elements concerning scope, time, budget, and quality.
Early involvement of stakeholders
Analysing the above venn diagram featuring three segments – business, technology and design – reveals the importance of early involvement from business stakeholders. This collaboration ensures a deep understanding of their assumptions regarding a feature or process.
- Identify the SMEs who might have full knowledge of this domain so you can map out the whole experience and identify the actors/personas involved in the process.
- Is there any secondary research available? Lots of researchers don’t ask this question, and most of the time, product managers and customers have some data available to look at, and it can save time and budget. Ask them: who is involved in this process? And who is going to use this feature?
- Run an empathy mapping exercise with stakeholders to create a shared understanding of user needs which can aid in decision making.
User research
Before conducting research, carefully select the research method that best suits your objectives. It could be ethnography, contextual inquiry, or another appropriate method based on your goals.
- Ethnography – Utilised to understand and document the activities and mindsets of a particular cultural group in their habitual environment
- Contextual inquiry – A deeper form of ethnographic interview and observation, useful for developing accurate scenarios, and identifying aspects of the user’s environment affecting product usage.
Conducting interviews
Conducting effective interviews hinges on being a good listener rather than a proficient talker. Follow these steps to structure your interviews:
- Define goals – Clearly outline your interview objectives adn the insights you aim to gather by the end of the interviews
- Create an interview guide – Prepare a comprehensive guide containing a brief description, study goals, basic demographic questions, icebreakers, and the questions or topics that are the primary focus of the interview.
Ask the right questions
Encourage participants to share relevant information voluntarily. Focus on storytelling to uncover attitudes, behaviors, and unexpected insights. Avoid influencing responses and aim for specifics by asking follow-up questions like “Why is that?” or “Tell me more about that.”
Analyse the data
After completing interviews, analyse the data collectively to identify themes, user needs, behaviour patterns, and mental models. Utilise affinity diagramming to organise related facts into distinct clusters, providing insights for developing personas and determining potential solutions.
Crafting a problem statement
Based on evidence collected from interviews, arrange a workshop with stakeholders to define a concise problem statement. Additionally, generate How-Might-We statements based on this problem statement and the identified personas, forming the foundation for high-level solution ideation and subsequent testing.
Outcomes of discovery
At the end of the discovery phase, the whole team should have a common understanding of problem space, the desired outcome, and the effort required. While the design discovery phase emphasises outcomes rather than artefacts, producing key artifacts remains crucial for effectively communicating learnings to the team about users, their needs, pain points, and the problem being addressed.
Here are some artefacts you might be producing at the end of discovery:
- User journey maps/customer journey maps
- Personas
- High-level service blueprints
- Storyboards
- High-level concepts to test
Playback of discovery finding to the broader group
While you might do several playbacks to the team during the project, conducting a playback of discovery findings to the broader group is a vital activity. It involves presenting insights and co-created ideas to stakeholders and team members, fostering a shared understanding of the users and their problem spaces.
Conclusion
All these activities can be completed in a couple of weeks, depending on the depth of insights desired and the number of user segments. In this short period, you can achieve meaningful outcomes and an understanding of the problem, rather than creating wireframes and visual designs that might go unused.
Empathy Mapping by NN/g: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/
Affinity Diagramming in UX by NN/g: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/affinity-diagram/
Just enough research book by Erika Hall: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/just-enough-research/9780133964394/
