When building a digital product, designing a solution, or tackling a complex problem, the temptation is often to jump straight into execution. However, even the best-designed product can fall short without truly understanding users' needs and pain points. This is where discovery sessions come in. By engaging with potential or current users early in the process, discovery sessions provide invaluable insights, helping teams to align on user expectations, validate assumptions, and identify the authentic problems to solve. Let’s explore the benefits of making discovery sessions a standard part of your design and problem-solving process. 

What Are Discovery Sessions?

A discovery session is a collaborative meeting where product teams, stakeholders, and users come together to explore challenges, discuss goals, and identify the underlying needs behind those challenges. These sessions allow teams to gather qualitative insights and user feedback before building solutions. The goal is to ensure a deep understanding of the users' problems and to validate that the team is working on solving the right ones. 

Why Discovery Sessions Should Be Standard Practice

Uncovering Real User Needs

Discovery sessions allow teams to dive deep into users' worlds. Often, what users think they need isn’t the same as the root problem they’re facing. These sessions provide the opportunity to ask questions, understand user behaviour, and unearth real needs that might not be apparent from surveys or secondary research.

Airbnb did it!

In its early stages, Airbnb needed help finding product-market fit. Through user discovery sessions, they realized that the main barrier for users was trust—people didn’t feel comfortable staying in strangers' homes. This insight led Airbnb to introduce verified reviews, host profiles, and other trust-building features that are now key to its success.

Validating Assumptions Early

One of the most common pitfalls in product design is making assumptions about what users want. Discovery sessions allow teams to test these assumptions early and often. Whether validating a feature idea or understanding a pain point more deeply, these conversations prevent costly mistakes later in the product development cycle.

Slack is a champion!

Slack conducted extensive discovery sessions before launching its product. Through conversations with potential users, they uncovered that teams needed a centralized communication hub that was both easy to use and highly customizable. These insights guided the development of core features that eventually made Slack the go-to tool for team communication.

Improved Stakeholder Alignment

Discovery sessions benefit the product team and bring stakeholders into the conversation early on. When stakeholders understand user needs from the outset, it’s easier to build alignment around priorities, resource allocation, and timelines. These sessions foster open communication between all parties, reducing the likelihood of misaligned goals.

Creating Empathy for the User

The most significant advantage of discovery sessions is the empathy they generate within the product team. Hearing directly from users about their frustrations, needs, and desires helps designers, developers, and product managers internalize the user’s point of view. This empathy ensures the product is designed with the user at the center.

IDEO and Design-Thinking

IDEO, a global design company, popularized the practice of empathy in the design process through discovery and ethnographic research. By deeply understanding users' emotions and experiences, they’ve created groundbreaking products, including the first Apple mouse. Discovery sessions were critical in bringing these innovations to life. 

Faster Iteration and Validation Cycles

Discovery sessions also create a foundation for faster iteration. When a team understands the problem well, they can quickly prototype solutions, gather feedback, and iterate more targeted. These more rapid feedback loops lead to better-designed products and reduce the risk of building something users don’t want or need. 

Making Discovery Sessions Part of Your Process

Who Should Be Involved?

Ideally, discovery sessions include users, product managers, designers, developers, and relevant stakeholders. A mix of perspectives is crucial to ensure the session captures the full scope of the problem and potential solutions.

When Should You Conduct Them?

Discovery sessions should happen as early as possible in the design process. However, they can also be valuable at different stages, such as during feature enhancements, product pivots, or when facing high uncertainty around user needs.

How to Run a Successful Discovery Session

Prepare: Outline key objectives, define the scope, and prepare questions encouraging users to share their pain points and goals.

Listen Actively: Allow users to share their experiences without leading them toward a specific answer.

Collaborate: Encourage open dialogue among team members and users to generate diverse ideas and perspectives.

Synthesize: Review the findings as a team after the session to extract key insights and action points.

Conclusion: Discovery Sessions Drive Better Products

Discovery sessions are a game-changer for product managers and designers alike. By making them a standard part of your process, you can uncover the real problems that need solving, validate assumptions early, and create products that truly resonate with your users. Whether you’re designing the next Airbnb or simply improving an internal tool, discovery sessions ensure that you’re not just building a product but the right one.