Design Discovery Practices: Engaging professional design communities with Ketso

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.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Kevin Rigotti

Peggy Gregory

Dan Fitton

Conference

Publication date: July 2021

Publication date (Print): July 2021

Pages: 262-270

Affiliations

[0001]UCLan

Preston

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2021.28

SO-VID: d8396b69-2d87-4c59-bb99-45edf9fd0018

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: 34th British HCI Conference

Conference acronym: HCI2021

Conference number: 34

Conference location: London, UK

Conference date: 20th - 21st July 2021

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Post-pandemic HCI – Living Digitally

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2021.28

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

V. BRAUN & V. CLARKE 2021. Analysing Qualitative Data in Psychology. In: E. LYONS & A. COYLE (eds.) Third ed. London: Sage.
D. BROWN 2017. Practical Design Discovery, New York, A Book Apart.
A. BRUUN, M. K. LARUSDOTTIR, L. NIELSEN, P. A. NIELSEN & J. S. PERSSON The Role of UX Professionals in Agile Development: A Case Study from Industry. Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 2018. New York: ACM, 352-363.
M. CAGAN 2018. Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love, New Jersey, Wiley.
P. CLARKE, R. V. O'CONNOR & M. YILMAZ In Search of the Origins and Enduring Impact of Agile Software Development. Proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on Software and System Process, 2018 New York. Association for Computing Machinery, 142–146.
E. DÖRNENBURG 2018. The Path to DevOps. IEEE Software, 35 , 71-75.
J. GOTHELF & J. SEIDEN 2016. Lean UX, Sebastopol, O'Reilley.
GOVERNMENT DIGITAL SERVICE. 2019. How the Discovery Phase Works [Online]. Service Manual. Available: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery/how-the-discovery-phase-works [Accessed 10 May 2021].
C. M. GRAY "It's More of a Mindset Than a Method": UX Practitioners' Conception of Design Methods. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016. New York: ACM, 4044-4055.
P. GREGORY, L. BARROCA, K. TAYLOR, D. SALAH & H. SHARP Agile Challenges in Practice: A Thematic Analysis. In: C. LASSENIUS, D. TORGEIR & M. PAASIVAARA, eds. Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, 2015. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 64-80.
J. KNAPP, J. ZERATSKY & B. KOWITZ 2016. Sprint, London, Bantam Press.
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R. G. MCGRATH 2010. Business Models: A Discovery Driven Approach. Long Range Planning, 43 , 247-261.
B. METZLER 2020. Leveling Up Your Research and Research Operations: Strategies for Scale. Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, 2020 , 203-217.
K. MOON & D. BLACKMAN 2014. A Guide to Understanding Social Science Research for Natural Scientists. Conservation Biology, 28 , 1167-1177.
D. SALAH, R. PAIGE & P. A CAIRNS Practitioner Perspective on Integrating Agile and User Centred Design. Proceedings of the 28th International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference on HCI 2014 -Sand, Sea and Sky - Holiday HCI, 2014. Swindon: BCS, 100–109.
D. A. SHEPHERD & M. GRUBER 2020. The Lean Startup Framework: Closing the Academic–Practitioner Divide. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice , 1-31.
G. R. SIM, B. ZAMAN & M. P. L. HORTON A Method Impact Assessment Framework for User Experience Evaluations with Children. Proceedings of British HCI Conference 2017, July 2017.
J. TIPPETT, J. F. HANDLEY & J. RAVETZ 2007. Meeting the challenges of sustainable development—A conceptual appraisal of a new methodology for participatory ecological planning. Progress in Planning, 67 , 9 - 98.
T. TORRES 2021. Continuous Discovery Habits, Bend, Oregon, Product Talk.
S. TRIEFLINGER, J. MÜNCH, B. HEISLER & D. LANG Essential Approaches to Dual-Track Agile: Results from a Grey Literature Review. In: E. KLOTINS & K. WNUK, eds. Software Business, 2021. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 55-69.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] V. BRAUN & V. CLARKE 2021. Analysing Qualitative Data in Psychology. In: E. LYONS & A. COYLE (eds.) Third ed. London: Sage.

[2] D. BROWN 2017. Practical Design Discovery, New York, A Book Apart.

[3] A. BRUUN, M. K. LARUSDOTTIR, L. NIELSEN, P. A. NIELSEN & J. S. PERSSON The Role of UX Professionals in Agile Development: A Case Study from Industry. Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 2018. New York: ACM, 352-363.

[4] M. CAGAN 2018. Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love, New Jersey, Wiley.

[5] P. CLARKE, R. V. O'CONNOR & M. YILMAZ In Search of the Origins and Enduring Impact of Agile Software Development. Proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on Software and System Process, 2018 New York. Association for Computing Machinery, 142–146.

[6] E. DÖRNENBURG 2018. The Path to DevOps. IEEE Software, 35 , 71-75.

[7] J. GOTHELF & J. SEIDEN 2016. Lean UX, Sebastopol, O'Reilley.

[8] GOVERNMENT DIGITAL SERVICE. 2019. How the Discovery Phase Works [Online]. Service Manual. Available: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery/how-the-discovery-phase-works [Accessed 10 May 2021].

[9] C. M. GRAY "It's More of a Mindset Than a Method": UX Practitioners' Conception of Design Methods. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016. New York: ACM, 4044-4055.

[10] P. GREGORY, L. BARROCA, K. TAYLOR, D. SALAH & H. SHARP Agile Challenges in Practice: A Thematic Analysis. In: C. LASSENIUS, D. TORGEIR & M. PAASIVAARA, eds. Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, 2015. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 64-80.

[11] J. KNAPP, J. ZERATSKY & B. KOWITZ 2016. Sprint, London, Bantam Press.

[12] K. KUUSINEN, P. GREGORY, H. SHARP & L. BARROCA Strategies for Doing Agile in a non-Agile Environment. Proceedings of the 10th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, 2016. New York: ACM, 5:1-5:6.

[13] C. LALLEMAND, G. GRONIER & V. KOENIG 2015. User experience: A concept without consensus? Exploring practitioners’ perspectives through an international survey. Computers in Human Behavior, 43 , 35 - 48.

[14] D. MALOUF, M. BLACK, C. WHITEHEAD & K. BATTLES 2019. DesignOps Handbook. InVision.

[15] R. G. MCGRATH 2010. Business Models: A Discovery Driven Approach. Long Range Planning, 43 , 247-261.

[16] B. METZLER 2020. Leveling Up Your Research and Research Operations: Strategies for Scale. Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, 2020 , 203-217.

[17] K. MOON & D. BLACKMAN 2014. A Guide to Understanding Social Science Research for Natural Scientists. Conservation Biology, 28 , 1167-1177.

[18] D. SALAH, R. PAIGE & P. A CAIRNS Practitioner Perspective on Integrating Agile and User Centred Design. Proceedings of the 28th International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference on HCI 2014 -Sand, Sea and Sky - Holiday HCI, 2014. Swindon: BCS, 100–109.

[19] D. A. SHEPHERD & M. GRUBER 2020. The Lean Startup Framework: Closing the Academic–Practitioner Divide. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice , 1-31.

[20] G. R. SIM, B. ZAMAN & M. P. L. HORTON A Method Impact Assessment Framework for User Experience Evaluations with Children. Proceedings of British HCI Conference 2017, July 2017.

[21] J. TIPPETT, J. F. HANDLEY & J. RAVETZ 2007. Meeting the challenges of sustainable development—A conceptual appraisal of a new methodology for participatory ecological planning. Progress in Planning, 67 , 9 - 98.

[22] T. TORRES 2021. Continuous Discovery Habits, Bend, Oregon, Product Talk.

[23] S. TRIEFLINGER, J. MÜNCH, B. HEISLER & D. LANG Essential Approaches to Dual-Track Agile: Results from a Grey Literature Review. In: E. KLOTINS & K. WNUK, eds. Software Business, 2021. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 55-69.

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