Discover the right product and build it the right way
The NearForm Discovery workshop process helps you quickly solve business and technical problems through collaboration, design and advanced prototyping. Our process helps to align teams through a shared vision with clearly defined goals and deliverables.
Ultimately, it is a process for understanding a hypothesis, prototyping an idea and testing it rapidly with as little investment as possible in as real an environment as possible.
A contextual 360 view of the challenges
The Discovery process can allow your team to take a fresh look at a wide landscape of possibilities, discover and prioritise different solutions to a problem in a fast, iterative way.
This process can be applied to many different needs, from generating a vision for a new product, or redesigning a specific feature or flow for an existing product, to improving a process or defining a brand.
Value to you
We don’t simply give you designs or possible solutions. We give you a full package addressing your unique technology needs, customer or user needs and business goals. We understand what it takes: we’ve been doing this for years and can help to de-risk the process.
Aligned approach
As objective partners, we help you align internal teams and company goals with your customers’ expectations.
A guided process
We guide you through a tried and tested process to build context, explore ideas and implement an approach.
The right mix of people
We have learnt that the best way to solve problems is by combining mixed skills working together.
Accelerated start
Detailed, mapped-out screens and prototypes are all based on a pragmatic technological approach and ready to start on day one.
What We Deliver
We set your project up for success by delivering a clear strategy and blueprint for how to proceed.
We provide you with more than just standard UI designs: what you get are comprehensive user journeys, detailed mapped out screens, all based on a pragmatic technological approach and aligned to your business objectives.
While there are many tangible assets created in the discovery process, some of the most powerful outcomes are those that bring people together into a group that agrees on a direction, owns the decisions and can communicate and deliver this vision to the rest of the organisation.
Interactive Prototypes
Prototypes are interactive and can be used for user testing, validation, promotion or simple as an interactive reference for developers.
User journeys / workshop materials
Prototypes are interactive and can be used for user testing, validation, promotion or simple as an interactive reference for developers.
Solution architecture document
Comprehensive breakdown of the architectural approach and technology stack
Work plans and estimates
Detailed estimates of next phase work, timelines, milestones and project cadence
Timelines
We typically run the Discovery workshop remotely and have optimised our process to make it as efficient as possible without demanding too much time from you and your team. Click on the sections below to see what’s involved.
Before the workshop we establish a clearer context through focused meetings where we bring in our experts to chat to yours. At this point any relevant materials are shared and NDAs completed. This allows us to pre populate some assumptions and hypotheses going into the workshop which accelerates day one of the workshop.
The workshop is a highly intense and focused collaboration. If you haven’t done a workshop before you will be amazed at the amount of work covered in such a short period of time. The key is a dedicated facilitator and a tried and tested methodology.
Day 1
This is a half day for you and your team, generally we do mornings and base this on your time zone. On Day 1 we work with you to define the challenges and gain a greater context of the project. The afternoons allow us to prep any adjustments to day 2 and to work ahead.
Day 2
This is a half day for you and your team, the same as day 1. Day 2 is about deciding what challenges to prototype. We explore user journeys and different aspects of the product to be developed. This also looks at the technical side with our Technical Directors leading those discussions.
Day 3
Day 3 is about aligning on the approach, cadence, any outstanding technical questions and agreeing on the prototype to be done.
After the workshop the design team will take the user journeys and workshop content and produce a high-fidelity interactive prototype. This can be tested with real users and provides a clear insight on where to go next. This is not a “wireframe” or a “paper prototype”, it looks and feels like a real product and will help documentation, development backlogs and additionally be a tangible reference for other teams such as marketing and other product teams.
Some of the notable outputs are:
- Architectural plan
- Work plan
- Test recordings
- Interactive prototypes
- Prototype files
- User journey maps
- Next steps and backlog