Analysis
The results of the discovery phase are usually acknowledged by the team during the exercises but is mandatory that documentation and analysis can’t be skipped. Especially in large projects, the view upon some ideas or findings might change influenced by time/context.
When necessary, some findings must be (re)analysed in the new context to better understand how it affects the next phases of the project.

Ideation
The ideation process takes shape in many forms: it can be done alone or in a group, in-person or remotely, the session can be short or span several hours, it could be a one-time event or a recurring meeting, and it can be as formal or informal as needed. There are no limits to the types of problems or design challenges that benefit from ideation, from large undertakings such as adding a new product feature, to small tasks like redesigning a specific portion of a single page.

There are three main characteristics of every ideation session:

Ideas are not evaluated.
The critical characteristic of an ideation session is that all judgment is postponed, so that every participant feels comfortable contributing, without fear of being evaluated. Evaluation stifles creativity.

Ideas are recorded and the session is documented.
Recording can be as barebones as taking notes with paper and a pencil, or can include supplies such as whiteboards, dry-erase markers, sticky notes, pipe cleaners, glue, construction paper, scissors, old magazines, or other documents to cut up — anything to help capture an idea before it dissipates. These artefacts record all thoughts in a tangible form within the session and ensure that none will be forgotten and dismissed once it is time to move into the evaluation stage. Additionally, having these artefacts visible to refer to during the ideation session can serve as inspiration for even more ideas.

Collaboration spurs diverse ideas.
While an individual can certainly ideate on her own successfully, working with a group often generates a greater number and variety of ideas. This could mean inviting just one other person or a whole multidisciplinary team to participate in the ideation session. While a large group runs the risk of getting unwieldy, a more diverse set of backgrounds, experiences, and areas of expertise can produce a wider set of ideas. Allowing others to share their ideas in this open environment also has team-building benefits and can strengthen buy-in for the final design because everyone had the chance to contribute.

In order to be effective, a discovery should be broad and technology- or solution-agnostic. When teams carry out a discovery on a product they have already decided to build, it no longer is a discovery, but, instead, it becomes a requirements-gathering exercise or a validation exercise where teams seek to confirm that their solution is the best. The discovery is off track when teams are asked “How do we make [insert name of solution] work for users?” or told to “Go find out what the user needs are for [insert name of solution]”.

A discovery should start with a broad objective such as like: “Go find out about this problem, just how big it is, and what the opportunities might be.”

Well-done discoveries ensure that any solutions proposed later are desirable to users, viable for the organisation, and feasible with the technology made available.

A discovery should result in the following:

Understanding of users
Through user research, the project team achieves an understanding of who the users are and how they are affected by a particular problem, as well as what they need, desire, and value from a solution (and why).

Understanding of the problems to be solved and of the opportunities
Through investigative work, the team understands how and why the problem(s) occur, what effect the problem has on users, as well as on the organization. It understands the magnitude of the problem and opportunities for the organization, product, or service.

Shared vision
During discovery, the team works with stakeholders to understand overarching business objectives and desired outcomes and get answers to questions such as ‘what do we want to achieve?’, or ‘what does success look like?’. This approach, in turn, focuses the team on the problems (and later the solutions) that will have the greatest impact on that outcome. The team should also have an idea of what to measure going forward, to understand whether the solution is working towards the desired outcome.
A discovery starts broad and requires team members to investigate the context of the problem. The double-diamond diagram introduced by the UK Design Council — and reproduced below — illustrates the high-level process of a discovery: first, the team expands its understanding of the problem by researching its full context; armed with this knowledge, the team agrees on what the problem is, before moving to the next phase of ideating and testing in the Develop stage.