Discovery Research tools add vital context in the discovery phase of Product Design
By Diana Glozman
What is the Discovery phase of design?
This initial data gathering in UX and Product Design is known as the discovery phase.
According to the NNg Group (Nielsen Norman Group), the discovery phase is “a preliminary phase in the UX-design process that involves researching the problem space, framing the problem(s) to be solved, and gathering enough evidence and initial direction on what to do next.”
The discovery phase is also represented in the first diamond of the UK’s Design Council’s Double Diamond Model.
When it comes to exploratory, generative or foundational research, not only is it best practice to have a discovery phase prior to making a decision on what design problem to solve for a new project, it also helps organizations align and scope out a problem before investing resources. This discovery research phase helps UX researchers uncover:
the right user personas
their pain points that you need to solve for and
the scope of the problem area.
When this discovery research phase is properly conducted, organizations can create desirable products, avoid project scope creep, and stay within timelines.
How can Mobile Ethnography be used as a Discovery Research Tool?
This crucial part of the design research process encompasses numerous data gathering techniques. Online (or Mobile) ethnography tools can play a unique role in expediting a large portion of these discovery research activities.
While the discovery research phase has numerous activities, Mobile Ethnography can help UX researchers with some of the most prominent ones:
Field studies
The disadvantages of traditional Discovery Research methods
Diary Studies are a discovery research method that are typically conducted over a set span of time. The participants keep a record of their experiences and reactions. However, for the researchers, there is some difficulty getting access to the data in real-time. There is also difficulty in collating the data after the participant turned in their notes.
Field Studies and Ethnographic Studies typically involve researchers going to the user’s destination and shadowing. While field studies can vary in the length of time conducted, they require a great deal of logistical preparation and coordination with participants. It’s also best practice for researchers to go in pairs, so they can ask questions, record findings, and capture more onsite data.
The benefits of mobile ethnography as a tool for discovery research
These pain points are eliminated by using Mobile Ethnography software. The researcher has access to all participant notes in real-time. They also have the ability to prompt tasks, ask questions, and organize notes along the way.
Researchers can coordinate numerous asynchronous studies in a variety of destinations. They can create tasks and prompts for participants to record daily activities. These recordings are nicely organized and make it easy to transcribe, tag, and share. This allows for researchers to gather more information and synthesize it in a shorter amount of time and money. It also helps researchers understand the context of the respondent as you are essentially getting a periscope into their worlds.
Key benefits of modern Discovery Research tools:
Intuitive Easy to Use App
Facilitates Mobile & Video Diary Studies
Available in 20+ Languages
Media Rich Researcher Dashboard
Powerful Analytical Tools
Enterprise Grade Security
How Mobile Ethnography can help with Discovery Phase research deliverables?
The discovery phase output consists of several key deliverables.
These deliverables include:
Personas
As mentioned above, ethnography software can provide the foundation for gathering most of the content and contextual insights needed for each of these deliverables.
It also provides the ability to automate some key data for each of these deliverables.
User Personas are created based on a collection of user data. These deliverables serve to help product teams align on different types of users and how these users interact with their products. Gathering user data can be challenging. Getting a good sample size of the core user and learning about their interactions and preferences can take a great deal of time. Mobile Ethnography can help with this data gathering by reaching numerous users asynchronously and gathering insights on their current user trends, their preferences, as well as provide in-context surveys for them to fill out. The large sample size and detailed data gathered will provide a solid foundation for each type of user persona.
User Journeys and Service Blueprints
Both of these deliverables capture a core workflow with User Journeys focusing on the usability aspect and Service Blueprints focusing on the customer experience. However, to understand the key touch points without spending numerous in-person meetings with every individual user and stakeholder, Mobile Ethnography can be a great solution. Asynchronous interviews with question prompts can quickly gather information needed. In-context prompts on emotional states can be captured and plotted using CSAT or NPS scores.
The importance of the Discovery Research phase
The discovery research phase of projects is best practice because of the incredible amount of value it brings an initiative by providing a solid foundation, scope, and direction.
However, this phase can be incredibly time-consuming, expensive, and ineffective without the right strategy and tools.
Using Mobile Ethnography software as a tool for discovery research makes data gathering and deliverable creation more efficient for researchers - saving a great deal of time and money without sacrificing the quality and content.
If you’d like to learn more about how our discovery research tools can transform your design discovery phase, please get in touch.
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“An intuitive way for participants to share photos, videos, and comments from the comfort of their phones. Easy for researchers to access rich information. I loved having AI transcripts, which made it easy to search across all the videos.”