Why we never skip discovery
Most design fails because it skipped this step. Teams jump into Figma before they understand the real problem, and no amount of visual polish fixes a solution aimed at the wrong target. Discovery is where we make sure we are solving the right thing.
The structure
We run discovery in three passes: context, constraints, and criteria.
Context: What is the business trying to achieve, who is the user, and what is happening in their world right now that makes this matter?
Constraints: What is fixed and what is flexible? Budget, timeline, tech stack, brand, legal. Naming these early prevents proposing directions that were never viable.
Criteria: How will we know this worked? If we cannot agree on what success looks like, we cannot agree on whether any design achieves it.
The output
Discovery produces one thing: a problem statement everyone signs off on. It is short, specific, and measurable. Everything we design afterward is judged against it. That single document is worth more than any moodboard.
