Designing for a Strategic Discovery

TribalScale Inc.
TribalScale
Published in
5 min readJul 9, 2019

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By Eman Faiz

A Strategic Discovery is the first step in the design process whereby the product team comes together to understand a specific business problem and to develop a strategy to solve that problem. The process involves Design Thinking principles, which apply equal attention to the end-user (desirability), the business (viability), and the technical capabilities (feasibility). The working team must also continuously ask themselves: Are we solving for real problems faced by real people? Will our solution work?

By following a structured Discovery process, teams are able to develop a validated strategy to unlock funding or budget and mitigate risks. This involves understanding the current state of the product or experience through generative research, ideating on problem areas defined by data findings, and validating a designed solution. However, there is one element of the process that is crucial for the success of a Strategic Discovery but is often overlooked. This is the final stakeholder-facing presentation where the team must contextualize the solution for senior leadership and executives in order to spark the motivation to pursue the proposed strategy.

What is the designer’s role in a Strategic Discovery?

Firstly, designers are tasked with defining the solution. In order to do so, they must leverage their understanding of the current state of the experience, real challenges faced by end-users, conditions of the technical landscape, and the underlying objective of the business. This can be a daunting task as the designer must reference each of the above points for all parties. But at this point, the end-users’ needs are prioritized above all. By determining the most ideal user experience, the team then develops a direction to solve toward. This initial design is by no means the final solution. However, now the discussion on how to achieve this ideal experience is defined and can be facilitated through a structured approach.

What does the design deliverable look like at this stage? It can be a combination of flow charts or step-by-step descriptions. The decision on how to visualize this stage of the solution is dependent on the designer and how they choose to communicate with the working team. Ultimately, the goal is to have everyone aligned on an initial solution and a path forward. This allows the designer to move on to the next chapter of the Discovery, which is to design a prototype for testing in order to validate the proposed solution with real end-users.

Testing Prototypes

Once the team has aligned on the ideal user experience, the focus turns to getting feedback from real end-users on whether or not the solution solves for their needs. Depending on the complexity of the proposed solution, and the time frame of the Discovery, testing a complete user journey can be challenging. This is when a pre-defined list of user and business goals helps prioritize the specific features of the solution that need to be validated.

At this stage, designers work closely with researchers to develop a testing strategy for the defined solution; asking themselves: What do we want to test and how are we going to test for it?

Developing a testing strategy will help to determine what assets need to be created. A testing strategy includes a list of assumptions made when ideating on the data-driven problem areas, specific questions that the tests will aim to answer, and a script to ensure all tests follow a similar structure in order to provide quantifiable results. With Strategic Discoveries, concept testing provides more valuable feedback than usability testing. This means that the test does not always involve a linear screen flow; for example, A/B testing requires visuals of two variations of one concept, and as such, will not lead to feedback on the complete flow. It is ultimately up to the researcher to determine what type of test will bring about the most effective feedback. However, designers and researchers must keep in mind that developing a linear screen flow at this stage is practical as it can save time when designing the storytelling prototype.

Most of the time, the priority of testing is on validating high-level concepts — tip: accurate copy on the testing prototype will provide more practical feedback than spending time on a fully fleshed out UI. That being said, the information hierarchy and architecture, and the screen flow are still highly influential as they are the foundation of the experience. Needless to say, a designer must create a balance across all areas.

By conducting concept testing, only certain parts of an idea or solution are illustrated. This means that at this point of the Discovery, some parts of the user journey have yet to be visualized. When designing the final iteration, the design tasks shift from developing testing prototypes into storytelling prototypes.

Storytelling Prototypes

The last wave of design tasks is to apply changes for the next iteration. This includes incorporating feedback collected from the tests, as well as information gathered through the technical evaluation.

Once complete, we have the final iteration, which is a great way to present our learnings and communicate the evolution of the design to key stakeholders. However, at this stage, the priority is almost always about visualizing the full solution rather than purely focusing on the specific parts that were tested.

Now, the prototype must be designed to illustrate a story, peppered with insights from user testing, objectives of the business, and cooperative approaches for technical restrictions. This can mean designing net-new screens or visuals to help pitch the solution. Depending on the complexity of the solution, it may be a combination of designed screens, photographs, or text — additional star power of animated interactions or sizzle videos can act as a final flourish. However, a beautiful UI and/or animations can only go so far. These additional embellishments truly work best when representing a clear, thought-through, data-driven, and validated strategy and solution.

During the final presentation of a Discovery, the team presents a strategy and solution that inspires innovative change. The purpose of these engagements is to allow teams to pursue a strategy or solution with the confidence that it will truly solve the challenges faced by the business and will address the needs of real end-users.

Eman Faiz is a designer with a demonstrated history of working in financial technology. As part of building an Innovation Lab, she helped develop a vigorous design thinking methodology to create client-centric strategies for multiple financial services, products, and experiences. Shifting from enterprise to services, Eman is currently working at TribalScale defining the Discovery practice to bridge the gap from concept to build. She collaborates with technology and strategy teams to design and deliver digital solutions and products. Eman is a strong believer in evolving processes, practicing end-user research and testing, and creating delightful experiences that solve real user needs.

TribalScale is a global innovation firm that helps enterprises adapt and thrive in the digital era. We transform teams and processes, build best-in-class digital products, and create disruptive startups. Learn more about us on our website. Connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook!

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TribalScale Inc.
TribalScale

A digital innovation firm with a mission to right the future.