01 · Service

Discovery & Research

Discovery is the work that determines whether the product you build is the right one. Before any pixel gets drawn, the goal is to align stakeholders on the problem, surface the constraints, and translate fuzzy intent into a clear set of decisions and user stories engineering can build against.

01 · Discovery & Research

How I approach this

The work, one phase at a time.

I start every engagement with a kickoff workshop that aligns design, product, and engineering on the problem statement, success criteria, and known constraints. Without alignment at the start, every later decision becomes a debate.

Stakeholder interviews follow - PMs, engineers, ops, sales, customer success - to surface the operational and political reality behind the brief. The brief is rarely the whole picture.

User research is sized to the question, not the budget. Five to eight depth interviews typically saturate a problem space; surveys and diary studies fill in scale. Existing PRDs, API docs, support tickets, and analytics get audited in parallel so research builds on signal that already exists.

Synthesis happens out loud: a shared workshop where themes, journeys, and JTBD frames get pinned to the wall (FigJam or Miro). Outputs are an insights deck, an opportunity map, and a research repository the team can return to long after I'm gone.

Process · in practice

What I deliver

Tangible outputs from this engagement.

01
Stakeholder alignment workshop and aligned problem statement
02
User research plan with recruitment criteria
03
Depth interviews (5-8 typical) with transcripts and tagged quotes
04
Synthesis: themes, insights, JTBD frames, journey maps
05
Opportunity map with prioritisation rationale
06
Research repository in Dovetail, Notion, or Confluence

Methods & frameworks

The shoulders I stand on.

Jobs-to-be-Done (Christensen, Klement)
Frames research around the progress users are trying to make, not the features they ask for.
Double Diamond (Design Council)
Discover → Define → Develop → Deliver. Keeps divergent and convergent thinking in their lanes.
Contextual inquiry (Beyer & Holtzblatt)
Watching real users do real work in their real environment - the highest-signal research method.
Top-task analysis (Gerry McGovern)
Prioritising what matters most to users before designing the interface around it.
Heuristic evaluation (Nielsen 10)
A fast usability sweep against established heuristics to surface obvious problems early.
Tree testing & first-click testing
Quantitative validation for navigation and IA decisions.