Discovery & Validation
Build what people wantWho are your customers?
Are you building the right thing?
Is there really a need for your product?
How does your idea fit within the market?
We help you understand people and problems, identify and validate solutions, and clarify your product’s purpose. How?
When we study users we immerse ourselves in their worlds, where activities are not orderly and motivations seem contradictory. We solve the puzzle of user behavior through rigorous analysis, separating meaningful patterns from background noise.
Discovery research creates a deep understanding of people’s behaviors and needs — the Who, What, and Why. Market research highlights your niche and positioning in relationship to competitors. Validation ensures that your product meets a real need and people will buy it.
Here is How We Work With You
Discovery Research
Great innovation begins with understanding people. We inform your strategy and design parameters for products and services by providing an understanding of end-users, the context of use, and identifying unmet needs.
Our team of expert researchers (with PhDs and MAs) will do the hard work for you. We roll up our sleeves and get “into the field”- studying people in their natural context to understand their lived reality, challenges, and opportunities to improve their lives.
Discovery research delivers thick, rich data about people. The insights generated answer questions about the problem or market opportunity. They help you clarify and articulate a project’s reason for being, answering the questions:
“What should I build?” or “Are we building the right thing?”
We synthesize findings into reports, personas, UX scenarios, and storyboards that bring their experience to life. This creates empathy and aligns the product and design teams to the people that matter the most – your users.
Concept Validation
Concept validation helps assess the viability of product ideas before they enter the real world. This critical step helps ensure you are building the right product or service.
Our experts will use evaluative methods to validate both the problem and the posed solution. These techniques will help answer four key validation questions:
- Is the problem real?
- Does your idea solve a problem?
- Is there a market?
- Does anyone care enough to buy?
We will then use data from discovery and validation to create a product market fit scorecard.
The outcome of validation is evidence to inform the decision to iterate, pivot, or persevere with your concept. If and when your concept is validated, you gain confidence—knowing that the problem is real and that your solution meets user needs. This is an early indicator of product market fit.
Market Research
Market research analyzes market size, competitors, and demand for a product. This crucial exploration highlights where you fit into the larger market and how you can stand out compared to competitors.
Research informs actions—and decisive action in the marketplace is the difference between a brand’s failure or its success. Through research, our experts will determine the viability of a new product or service by answering these questions:
- What is the market size and customer demand?
- Who are our competitors?
- How can we stand out?
- How do we reach our audiences?
- What price point should I set for my product?
We will provide analysis reports and an informed plan for your business in the larger marketplace. The outcomes include an understanding of your niche, clarity on your core value propositions, and your positioning in relationship to the competition.
Strategy Workshops
Strategy workshops are intensive collaborative sessions used to solve problems and enable progress on a particular challenge.
Our team works with stakeholders to define project goals, generate ideas, and develop strategies in a creative, participatory environment.
We also facilitate co-creation workshops that engage all stakeholders (users, designers, managers etc.) in design activities. These bring the voice of the customer directly to the team, and help them think outside the box. These highly innovative workshops often result in new ideas and pivotal shifts to the product roadmap.
The length of each workshop varies based on project needs, scope, and stakeholder availability.
Ready to begin?Let's discuss your project.
WHAT WE DO
Our Methods
Ethnography
Study people’s behaviors in their natural environment.
Contextual Inquiry
Go where your users are to see how your product fits into their lives.
User Interviews
Inspire innovation by listening as your customers reveal unmet needs and desires.
Workflow Analysis
Unpack complex processes to identify areas for improvement and optimize your product’s role.
Competitive Analysis
Compare your product to the competition and identify strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Journey Mapping
Visualize user’s processes to identify pain points and uncover opportunities.
Persona Creation
Build empathy for your users by clarifying their key behaviors, needs, and goals.
Market Surveys
Gather an understanding of trends and attitudes by surveying the market.
Concept Validation
Connect with your target audience to test the percieved value of design concepts and how well it does or doesn’t meet their needs.
Bryan is an expert in the field of UX research and design. He’s got an incredible work ethic and his research process is rigorous and effective. He recently presented a UX research brief, and I told him it was the best work I’ve ever seen. I will enthusiastically endorse Bryan to anyone looking to understand their customers and develop products that solve real problems. I hope to work with him on many projects in the future.
Eric Weiss, CEO, Full Cycle Product Development
FAQ
Why do I need to do research?
A lot of products fail because someone has a great idea, gets funding, and builds it without ever testing to see if there a need or if people see enough value to buy it. You do this research to find out what people actually need and validate your concepts before you spend a lot of time and money on an idea. This saves costs in the long run.
How long does discovery research take?
It depends on how well you already know your target audience. If you are conducting intial research to understand people and their needs, it usually takes about 3 months to gain clarity. If you have a good foundation and are willing to take a more intensive approach, you can learn a lot about a specific audience with a few weeks of ethnographic field work.
How much does it cost?
Discovery and validation are billed hourly because it is impossible to predict how many topics or concepts you will end up exploring. Answering your first questions often lead to others, and you might need several rounds of validation before you are sure you are buiding the right thing. Having said that, you should expect to invest at least $20-30k. If you think that is expensive, ask yourself “What is the cost of being wrong and building a product that no one wants?”