Discovering
This practice includes activities like user research, service mapping, and assumption testing. It’s how we ensure we’re building the right thing, not just building things right. It’s not something that happens once at the start. It’s a mindset and capability that may re-emerge at any point when new information arises.
- Helps avoid building the wrong solution to the right problem
- Uncovers the true needs and pain points of users, not just stakeholder assumptions
- Builds empathy, shared understanding, and alignment
- Supports better prioritisation and reduces waste
Desired outcomes vs anti-patterns
Desired outcomes
- A clear understanding of the problem space
- Evidence of user needs, not just opinions
- Shared vision across team and stakeholders
- A backlog of validated opportunities or ideas
- Reduced risk of building the wrong thing
Anti-patterns to avoid
- Skipping user discovery to “save time”
- Treating discovery as a one-time phase
- Confusing internal opinions with user needs
- Using research to justify pre-decided solutions
- Delegating discovery to one role or silo
When we do it
- At the beginning of a new initiative, feature, or policy shift
- Whenever clarity is lacking. e.g., vague requirements or stakeholder misalignment
- Before committing sizable resources to build
- After deployment, to learn from failures or successes and refine understanding
Tools & techniques
- User research: Interviews, surveys, shadowing, contextual inquiry
- Problem framing: “How might we…” statements, hypothesis framing – best with real end users.
- Service & experience mapping: Customer journey maps, service blueprints
- Co-design & discovery workshops: Stakeholder alignment, brainstorming, empathy mapping
- Assumption testing: Discovery spikes, experiments, paper prototypes
- Personas & scenarios: Synthesised artefacts to guide empathy and design
- Lean UX canvas or Opportunity canvas: Helps connect user needs to business goals
Practice in action
“During a Sprint Review, the team invited a small group of real users to view a rough prototype. Their feedback reframed the entire direction. What we thought was a complex workflow issue turned out to be a trust issue around terminology. We shifted our focus to language, simplified the UI, and solved the actual problem - not the assumed one.”