Discovery phase
Understanding the real needs of your customers and unlocking business opportunities
The discovery phase is where you will make your design challenge clear. Before you can move on to research, analysis and eventually solutions, you need to understand what challenge you’re trying to tackle. A clear and successful discovery phase will set you up for success in the rest of the human-centered design (HCD) process.
In this phase, you will begin by looking broadly at the topic you are addressing and then narrow it down to a clear and concise design challenge. This design challenge binds all the phases together.
Importance of this phase for remittance and financial service providers
This phase is important to define your focus. In the remittance and financial services industry, there are many directions you can take and the discovery phase allows you to identify your target audience and what challenges you would like to address for the duration of the human-centered process. Your design challenge should not be too broad; this phase will help you identify where you and your service are best positioned in the remittances and financial services landscape and what challenges there are for you to address.
Mindset
The word ‘challenges’ can come with negative connotations, but challenges are also your opportunity to make positive change! Every challenge has a solution, and keeping an optimistic and inquisitive mindset will set you up for success in all phases of the HCD process. Don’t ignore challenges or hurdles, but consider them opportunities for change and a way to provide a service that truly addresses user needs.
Common challenges
Too narrow or too broad:
A challenge or topic can be addressed with a broad to narrow focus. One of the biggest challenges within the discovery phase is to find this balance. With an overly broad focus, you may run out of time and fail to address a clear user need. Yet, with an overly narrow focus you may miss out on the opportunity for scalable change and impact. Some of the tools in this phase will help you in finding this balance.
System mindset:
As you begin to hone in on your personal area of focus, keep in mind the system as a whole. Sometimes as we focus on solving a specific challenge, we may forget the ecosystem surrounding it. This is where systems thinking can help: it is a way of remembering that your service is part of a larger system and is impacted by and affects it. Try to keep this in mind throughout the discovery phase.
