15 Effective Product Discovery Techniques and Frameworks
The way teams deliver products has drastically changed in recent years, with advanced AI solutions and sophisticated tools visibly speeding up the process. But although you can build something really fast, say, using no-code MVP tools, it doesn't give you guarantees nor serves as a fast pass.
In fact, if you want to do things right and avoid wasting time on unnecessary do-overs or experiments that weren't worth it from the beginning, product discovery is the essential starting point. You have to identify the genuine needs of users and uncover a problem to solve. It doesn't go the other way around, and you shouldn't try to find a high-demand profitable way to utilize a solution. Using a product discovery framework or two can be the key to achieving this.
What are the most effective discovery techniques for each phase of your workflow? With a wide array of methods available, you need those in sync with your business needs and final goals.
On this page, we explore a variety of frameworks and methodologies that can help you make the most of your product discovery efforts. We'll also overview 15 frameworks for product discovery to simplify and streamline the process.
What Are Product Discovery Methods?
Product discovery frameworks offer a structured approach to teams that are at the early stages of research and development, possibly right past ideation. It can assist you in defining the target audience, the specific problems these people have, and a glance at the optimal ways to address them. Such methods empower teams with insights into user needs, market trends, and the feasibility of the undertaking before product creation begins.
Essentially, it's time for discovery once you've gone through proof of concept and confirmed that the project is worth a shot. However, some POC methods can be used during the discovery stage. The process and its corresponding frameworks can be split into two distinct phases:
- Exploration — the goal is to generate solutions for the identified problem, so such methods as market research, surveys, user interviews, and existing competitor analysis are usually applied at this point.
- Validation — the aim is to verify the assumptions made during the previous phase, ensure there is business value, and that it's possible to bring it to life, so prototyping, usability testing, and collecting customer feedback matter.
Why Are Product Discovery Techniques Important?
All of this hard, time-consuming work is crucial because it lets teams gather valuable insights in the early stages of the product development life cycle. Different techniques make it possible to handle research, information-gathering, decision-making, and testing methodically. This reduces the likelihood of creating a product that is useless, doesn't meet user expectations, doesn't resonate with the target audience, and isn't viable in the market.
Moreover, discovery techniques help set ongoing learning on track. This is one of the basics of the lean startup framework that many opt for to adapt and iterate their offering throughout the development process based on the obtained insights, feedback, and knowledge. Not falling back on guesswork lets teams adjust their tactics and refine their strategies to build meaningful solutions and successful final products.
Of course, such research is fundamental for forming initial product ideas and concepts. Yet it is equally valuable in contributing to the ongoing evolution of a product once it is released. Hence, product discovery is a continuous process that doesn't stop after the product or MVP launch. As new research needs arise, teams can restart or shift between different phases letting authentic user insights guide every stage.
What Are the Most Common Discovery Techniques?
The core steps of product discovery are all about gaining a deep understanding of your users to figure out what to build and how to do it optimally. This involves recognizing their problems, exploring existing solutions, and evaluating how your product can do it better. Notably, it is vital to fall back on qualitative and quantitative data, figures, facts, and metrics. Here are some widely-used product discovery methods for different steps of the process.
Step 1: Uncovering User Challenges
This exploratory stage is when you attempt to identify user pain points, genuine needs, and values. Direct conversations with customers during interviews, running surveys, and working on detailed competitor evaluations are often used methods to gather such insights and formulate a product problem statement.
Step 2: Defining the Solution
Next, you have to analyze the collected data and information. What are the most prevalent issues? The unveiled customer challenges should be your solution’s focus. Overall product analytics and product hypothesis generation can be handy at this point.
Step 3: Prioritizing for Early Release
Now you have to decide how to tackle the identified problems and approach the solution's development. Utilizing prioritization methods is helpful, as you may determine which product features and ideas to implement first, what to include in the MVP scope, and what to leave in the backlog for later.
Step 4: Prototyping and Testing
Designing a version of the product through prototyping can help with visualization and confirming the customer journey. It gives ground for usability tests, making tweaks, and other decisions that'll shape the early version of the product when you proceed to building an MVP.
Don't want to take the risk of skipping discovery?
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15 Product Discovery Techniques and Frameworks
If you want to build a quality product that resonates, you have to ask the right product discovery questions and find answers to them. Using a special product discovery framework or several of them can assist you with that. In the next section, we'll introduce you to commonly applied ones along with when and how to utilize them.
General Discovery Techniques
The following three methods that we'll review in this section deal with finding answers to product development questions that can set the direction for the entire project and keep everyone organized.
Design Thinking
This user-centric methodology puts customer needs in the spotlight. It also values innovative thinking and choosing in favor of quick prototypes. Plus it can also be good if you want to evaluate whether the project is technologically and economically feasible for your business.
To use the method, begin by trying to step into your target audience's shoes to find out their needs and desires, which will pave the way to their challenges. You'll then need to confirm the relevance of the problem by evaluating the market and gathering insights. Based on that, move on to brainstorming potential solutions to the problem. And if you decide to give it a go, make prototypes, test them, get feedback, and refine your ideas if necessary. It's possible that you'll conclude that the initial concept was a no-go, and if so, go back to the beginning and look for another problem.
The Five Whys
The solution search begins by reframing the issue, and the 5 Whys method helps pinpoint the root causes of customer problems. Asking "why" questions lets teams get to the heart of the core issue, put it in focus, and create solid hypotheses. This is particularly useful during early development stages. For instance, if your initial research highlighted a missing feature, the technique can hint at the reasons behind that letting you come up with the best solutions.
To use the framework, begin with the problem you're facing and then start by asking "why" questions like "Why is this problem happening?" Then continue by asking more resultant "whys". The answers you get in the end will reveal the underlying issues to address, which will let you brainstorm possible solutions.
Circles
The Circles framework, formulated by Lewis C. Lin, can also lead teams to find needed answers regarding what to design and the rationale behind it. Each letter in "CIRCLES" stands for a crucial step of the process: Comprehend, Identify user needs, Report user needs, Cut via prioritization, List solutions, Evaluate trade-offs, and Summarize. The steps are quite self-explanatory, but the framework places a strong emphasis on customer needs, which leads to better-prioritized product roadmaps.
User Research
It is wise to prioritize in-depth user research and make user personas, noting who these people are and all the important details that matter for the project. As we’ve mentioned, it all boils down to the users and what people actually need. That's why if you don't want to fall back on guesses, these methods can be a beneficial way to mitigate personal biases.
Jobs To Be Done (JTBD)
The product or solution you build can be viewed as a job or task that a person wants to complete. If you think about it, this is exactly why people purchase tools and use software: they want to solve specific problems.
The JTBD framework can let you organize customer needs in terms of their aims and aspirations. To achieve that, you need to begin with identifying user goals, for instance, by engaging in user interviews. Note that JTBDs can differ for various personas. Then, split them into primary and secondary "jobs", describing each task that needs to be completed. Then decide which jobs are most critical and urgent, as their development should be prioritized.
Customer Interviews and Surveys
This is a primary discovery technique for collecting insights from users directly, for example, via surveys or interviews. Such observational studies let you get first-hand information that truly matters for your initiative. If you decide to hold interviews, it will be more time-consuming and costly but may bring you valuable information, including the language your target audience uses.
Begin by finding the group of participants to interview. Then, prepare a list of conversational prompts instead of a rigid script or a strict questionnaire. Start with simple warm-up questions and mix the rest around as the conversation flows, but make sure to cover all key topics and use your time wisely. Importantly, let customers express their thoughts themselves, don't put in your two cents or make suggestions that'll lead them to specific assumptions.
Interviews can be helpful after launch too. As such, in the later post-release stages, teams may use a product-market fit survey to assess how well they've hit the mark with their offering and how satisfied people are with it.
User Stories and Story Mapping
Teams can benefit from taking the time to craft concise descriptions of a feature from the user's perspective. User stories let you clarify how a certain point brings them value, guiding the development process. For instance, if your app user is a frequent traveler, then this person will likely want real-time flight updates on their mobile device to stay informed about any delays or changes. Hence, notifications should be a must.
After you create user stories, you can proceed to making flow maps or story mapping arranging the user experience on a map with a horizontal and vertical axis (that is, chronologically and based on their importance).
User Journey Mapping
Mapping the user journey lets you visualize each step a user takes to achieve their goals. It lets you pinpoint essential touchpoints a person makes when interacting with the product. Moreover, it lets you spot hiccups, inefficiencies, and points where users may encounter difficulties. Thirdly, get a clear understanding of the complete user experience from the second they find out about your product to their interactions after adoption.
To make a user journey map, you can apply tools like flowcharts to illustrate the various user stages. Your first step is defining user personas and audience segments. Then, you have to mark the major stages like awareness, purchase, or onboarding. Next, list the touchpoints where users interact with the product for each stage, which could be social media channels, your website, or something else. The hard part is collecting user feedback at each touchpoint to understand their experiences, which should be reviewed.
Market Research and Competitor Analysis
Deciding to initiate a product development project without testing the waters is usually an unjustified risk that leads to budget drain and wasted time. Apart from learning who you want to build the product for, you have to ensure there's enough room for it on the market and that you stand a chance among the existing competition. Here are several methods to help with that.
Investigating the Market
Detailed and thorough market research is integral for non-B2B and B2B product discovery techniques. A comprehensive view of the market lays the groundwork for many product-related decisions. It involves collecting vital information, typically including industry trends, the market state, customer demographics, trends, and overall industry landscape. Such findings also allow you to recognize potential opportunities and threats, assessing market viability.
Specifically, identifying market segments is one of the primary steps, when you break down the customers into groups. Then continue with market gap analysis as you have to know for sure where customer needs are not being met and which opportunities are untapped. Next is market sizing, when you determine how big the niche is for your product by calculating the probable market size.
Exploring Competitors
What about the solutions that are already out there? Of course, conducting a competitive landscape analysis is necessary for learning about the competitors' strategies, strengths, and weaknesses. This integral discovery framework implies that you have to determine who the direct and indirect competitors are and analyze where they stand, what they do well, what customers don't like, and which marketing techniques they use. This can let you get a clear picture of how to differentiate yourself, what to do to outperform them, and how to lure their customers to your product.
To approach this task, you need to engage in product analytics. Revise how competitor products are built and designed, which features and characteristics are present, and how they're available to users. Also look into their pricing strategy, marketing channels, value proposition, messaging, and the reviews customers give on various platforms. The more you manage to find out, the better you'll be able to set your offering apart in the market.
Prioritization Techniques
Knowing what to build first is integral for early product version release since you'll likely have limited resources. At this point, you have to finalize the product's core, selecting the must-include features and functionality. Here are several of the most popular shortlisting methods, and you can learn about them in detail in our separate feature prioritization guide.
MoSCoW
This model is designed to prioritize features and tasks based on their significance, letting teams determine what to deliver first. It categorizes tasks into four levels of priority, and the acronym stands for Must, Should, Could, and Won't have.
"Must-have" are the critical, top-priority ones you can't do without. "Should" refers to functionality that can be brought to life after the non-negotiable ones. "Could" are the nice-to-haves that aren't necessary but could benefit the result, so are low in priority. "Won't have" is what you decide not to work on, at least for now.
KANO
This framework can also let you evaluate product or feature ideas based on their potential to satisfy customers. Additionally, it takes into consideration the associated implementation costs. To use it, classify your features into four key categories and ask questions, for instance, in an interview, survey, or questionnaire during which people can rate how they like a feature.
Start with the "Must-be" essentials and basic necessities and the "Exciters" that can boost the user experience. Then the "Performance" ones that'll improve satisfaction and are worth the investment and "Indifferent" features that users don't care about much. Finally, put the results on a matrix to see which high-impact features to prioritize.
RICE Scoring
Mentioning another essential product discovery tool, the RICE formula may also be utilized for selecting features. It assesses ideas based on four criteria: Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort. Reach implies how many people the feature will affect in a certain time period. Impact assesses how high the effect will be, say via the conversion rate, from minimal to massive. Then mark how confident you are about the initiative: high, medium, or low. And also note the effort required to build it, including the time and investment, which could be measured per month.
The formula is multiplying Reach by Impact by Confidence and then dividing this by Effort. By calculating a final RICE score for each, you can rank all initiatives and decide what to build based on the final score.
Design Testing
When you've made up your mind on what to build first, it's time to craft the first designs of the future product. Teams often begin with research and forming the concept, then move on to UX wireframes followed by clickable models of the design. Here are a few product discovery techniques at the design stage.
UX Research
Making a great design that users will enjoy begins with research, specifically, teams use UX discovery as a method to gather insights regarding UX/UI using both quantitative and qualitative research. Data collection on usability solutions, element choice, design best practices, and trends may transform the initial ideas. Such research includes browsing competing solutions and getting an understanding of the industry and niche peculiarities. Likewise, user habits, behavior, and preferences have to be considered as well.
These findings can shape design decisions of the product, ensure they are in line with the business goals, and ascertain that the design is optimal, stands out, and is great in terms of usability. Designers can envision them in sketches and plan a course of action.
Creating Prototypes
What goes after you have some sketches or wireframes approved? Once the team decides which layouts to use, designers work on product prototyping. These interactive models resemble the final product's look and let you click through various elements to see how they'll work. Such product simulation is an amazing way to test out its visuals, appearance, and the intuitiveness of the functionality during the discovery phase. Plus, you can identify any potential issues and fix them proactively before any coding starts.
Usability Testing
When the prototypes are ready, they usually undergo user testing. Real users get to interact with this product model. During moderated or unmoderated sessions, they are presented with specific scenarios or tasks to complete. In turn, teams record their actions, real-time feedback, confusion points, and any hiccups that are noticed. Such testing takes the product a few steps closer to living up to user needs since you make necessary adjustments in due time. Certainly, it can be a valuable addition to the ongoing product discovery process even at later stages.
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Final Thoughts on Product Discovery Frameworks
Consistency is crucial if you're planning on creating exceptional products. Only then you'll be able to establish a strong brand and cultivate a loyal customer base. By adopting actionable frameworks early in the cycle and then investing time in ongoing product discovery, you can get closer to delivering outstanding experiences and outperforming competitors. And, importantly, your decisions will remain informed by real user insights and data at every turn.
Determining which framework is the most suitable for your scenario goes down to testing. Not all approaches will be applicable to your product or business case, yet you may customize them. While experimenting with various options, analyze why they worked for you or were ineffective to implement the best ones consequently.
If you need a hand with discovery and are having trouble with the toughest parts of the process like finalizing the tech stack, architecture, which third-party applications to link up, and so on, you can count on Upsilon's discovery phase services. In as little as two weeks, our expert team can give you a hand with the entire discovery stage, leaving you with an actionable plan on how to bring your solution to life most effectively in the next development steps. So don't be shy to contact us, we'll be glad to discuss what you have in mind!
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