Design Discovery
Is a preliminary phase in a design process to understand business objectives, product domain and its users to help identify problems and opportunities for a design direction.
Through discovery we can learn about vision, potential competitors and intended users, and with gained knowledge we can propose solutions desirable to users, viable for the organization, and feasible with the technology made available.
Stakeholder interviews
The first step in a design discovery phase is to understand business objectives and desired outcomes.
A design brief might tell the story of what to design, build and deliver, but not if a solution is feasible, viable or has the business value as intended.
With stakeholder interviews we can collect unique knowledge and valuable insights around key business objectives, potential users, and expectations of outcome.
Insights of value could be behavioral data, what has been tried, what to achieve, how something will be used, and what to measure as success, and which helps us to focus on problems first.
Design discovery helps to uncover opportunities, explore solutions and develop strategies for meaningful growth.
Exploratory research
Once expectations and problems are more clear, the next step will be to gather insight around potential users, identify competitors, and to build up domain knowledge.
Behavioral data and known understanding around users can help to create proto-personas, but to gain a deeper understanding of how users are affected by a particular problem, we can conduct user interviews.
By interacting and meeting real users, we can understand a user's perspective, pain points and their desired value in using a service or product.
We can also analyze and validate the competitive landscape and shape what we think will have the greatest impact on outcome.
A deeper knowledge in what users say, thinks, does and feels will always be the best way to validate feasibility, desirability, and viability.
Exploratory and qualitative research can help discover and shape market opportunities ahead of the competition.
Definition of success
The outcome of design discovery is to have a detailed understanding of a design brief, what outcomes to achieve and how to execute an upcoming user experience design phase.
Part of our knowledge at this stage will be to have a clear understanding of existing knowledge, product domain, competitive landscape, potential target group, and any constraints or evidence of viability.
We should now be able to map out simple journeys and information architecture to outline the core functionalities of what to design. We can also define purpose, assess the scope and estimate a project's timeline.
In some cases a design discovery can even reveal bad ideas or choices, and the result might show that there is no need for that particular solution.
