Your best chance is to discover the root cause of user acceptability, usability, or a general reduction in user satisfaction issues with your company’s product or service. You need to get the UX discovery phase right; otherwise, you risk failing to address your business’s problem and creating the incorrect system. Think of launching a company without researching the market or bringing on a new employee without performing an interview. Both situations appear absurd. Nevertheless, many firms start sizable IT and digital initiatives without going through the UX discovery activities.
Discovery research UX is a mixture of the techniques used by businesses to create well-received goods and services. The UX discovery process requires a strong research plan. Structure, efficiency, and a clear route to completion may all be produced through a great design process. The team begins by outlining an issue, follows up with research, brainstorms potential solutions, builds prototypes, tests them, and ultimately launches a product. Although it can seem like a straightforward procedure, there are several potential dangers.
UX discovery phase
Spend some time discovery UX. In general, the more time you invest in the discovery process UX, the more information you’ll learn about the issue at hand, and the better the answer, the better it will be. Features/functional discovery and design discovery are two distinct discovery UX processes.
UX functional discovery
Usually, UX metrics are used to make this finding. A prospective product’s technology stack is established, all criteria are gathered, and feature and functional discovery seek to identify any rivals in the market (choose technologies that can be used in this product). A feature discovery team performs the following tasks:
- Analyze user expectation: Users do not always require or desire the same things. Too frequently, the product team concentrates on both requirements and wants, leading to an endless product backlog. You must be aware of the needs and demographics of your target audience. You may learn this information by conducting interviews with target market members.
- Clearly define business objectives: Our two main aims in product design are to achieve business objectives and provide excellent user experiences for those who will use our goods. Functional discovery aims to align business objectives and product design.
- Create a competitive comparison: A team will thoroughly understand its direct and indirect competitors after doing a competitor analysis. The next stage is to utilize this data to determine the advantages and disadvantages of your potential product. You may develop a competitive comparison chart to display this information to stakeholders visually. This chart lets you and your stakeholders see which niche your product falls into.
Design recovery
Designers often make this discovery. Designers do study to determine which design choices apply to a particular product. Avoiding restrictions is essential throughout the design discovery process. Each restriction will have a detrimental effect on creativity, preventing really new items. You can only make an innovative design choice after your mind is clear. Connecting the data from the two discovery stages together in the discovery phase will result in a solid product design direction. Both teams should meet to discuss their design choices after completing their activities. The time has come to combine the design choices and build a clear design course. It’s critical to emphasize the following key points:
- Never should a designer follow the engineering team without question. The engineering team shouldn’t impose their preferred design direction; rather, it should be mutually agreed upon.
- Determine the opportunity. Understanding the market’s present situation and projecting it into the future is critical throughout the discovery phase. It will assist you in creating solutions for the product’s future in two, five, or ten years. The likelihood that a product will be in demand and sustainable will rise.
Here is a simple real-world UX discovery phase illustration. Let’s say your team is developing an HMI for a high-end vehicle.
The initial team gathers all needs from all parties. Then it examines high-end automakers, the technology they employ, and the consumer solutions they offer. The group evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of various alternatives. The team suggests a set of features that should be included in a product based on the information provided.
The second team carries out design research. They concentrate on visual choices that may be incorporated into a project rather than on features and technology. To identify the ideal curve for an HMI, a team, for instance, can examine the form of an automobile.
