How do we execute a meaningful discovery phase when time and budget are limited?

Chloe Ward-Smith | Product Designer and Product manager DabApps

With a background in Fine Art, Chloe spent over a decade in the Fashion Industry as a Clothing and Accessory designer, including six years at H&M in Stockholm. They worked for a while as a Freelance Textile Designer and Illustrator, before transitioning into the Tech industry around six years ago, initially working in Operations and Project Management before returning to Design – this time within Software. 

Chloe’s been at DabApps, a Brighton based software agency, for four years in a split role as Product Designer and Project Manager; In this role they lead cross-functional teams, and serve as a liaison between clients and internal functions, guiding projects from early discovery through launch and ongoing support. They facilitate workshops to gather requirements and co-create user-focused solutions, as well as Researching, Wireframing and Prototyping. They are passionate about User experience and equitable design, and outside of work, they write fiction, create comics, dance Lindyhop, and meditate.

Abstract

In this interactive workshop, we’ll explore this theme together, working with a client brief for a project which has limited resources. We’ll work in smaller groups to explore the challenge together and identify what we would choose as the most important research methods, then take this discussion out into the wider team; We’ll share ideas, reflect and discuss, and build a roadmap – drawing on collective experience to plan an effective discovery phase, and ensure we prioritise user needs over client feature lists. 

This session creates space for peer learning, exploration, and practical problem-solving together as a team. Participants will leave with a stronger understanding of how to shape discovery for projects with constraints, and how to remain flexible and sensitive to the needs of the client and the project. We’ll have some great conversations, we’ll be curious, and hopefully also have some fun.