Design Discovery Practices: Engaging professional design communities with Ketso

Abstract

Decisions and assumptions made during design sessions, when teams are formulating their design objectives and their understanding of the problem they intend to solve, can be essential to the outcome as they fundamentally shape and direct the design of the product or service that is delivered. Current practice in these crucial design discovery activities is under-explored in the academic literature. To address that shortfall, and answer the research question of how UX practitioners approach and perform discovery, we used the Ketso workshop format to explore the design discovery process and its challenges with 12 user researchers and designers from a university and a large retail organisation. Our thematic analysis of the workshop outputs showed that practitioners valued an empirical data-led approach, where they could have confidence in the coverage and validity of the data, and achieve a shared understanding of the user research findings across the organisation. Key challenges included the mindset of stakeholders, with whom practitioners wanted deeper engagement, and constraints on time which may require HCI research to develop practical solutions.