Discoveries: Building the Right Thing

"Discovery was a whole new thing to me, I learned a lot today."

Ingrid Pigueron, Freelance, Paris, France

"Discovery is foundational to good design! As a content strategist, I'd done discoveries before, but this class gave me new tools, tips, and things to think about. I can't wait to put this to use at work and add more rigor to our content design org."

Sarah Mohs, Intuit, Minneapolis, MN

"Maria is very knowledgeable and the course structure was perfect for my needs: a mix of teaching, individual and team activities, as well as real life examples. It gave me insights about how to structure my future discovery sessions and most important, what to do/don't do to make them work. I will certainly be able to apply these learnings on my day to day job. Thanks!"

Constantina, Musgrave, Dublin

"Maria made the course easy to follow highlighting what a Discovery should and shouldn't contain, with case studies to illustrate different areas. It was very helpful that Maria answered our various questions so that we could relate the knowledge to our own situations. Thank you very much."

Erika Street, UK

"Extremely valuable knowledge. Everything here was without doubt use to me and improve the way I work."

Ian Merry, esure Insurance, Surrey, UK

"The course was incredible. Despite having made discoveries in practice, I learned a lot in the course and cleared up my doubts."

Roberta de Medeiros Fernandes, SERPRO, Recife

"Even if you have loads of Discovery Experience, this will help you frame it all in a nice measured and marketable package. It is always great to see how others are working and the interaction with other students was hugely useful."

Martin Kerr, Scottish Enterprise, Glasgow, Scotland

"A very insightful course about the discovery process, especially if you're just starting out in this field or if your company just started doing them. Anybody working on a product needs to better understand their industry and users. Maria delivered the material superbly and answered all the questions we had. Would highly recommend it!"

Primoz Kos, Cleanshelf, Ljubljana, Slovenia

"If you want to solve the root problem rather than designing for the symptoms, then this class is for you. This class is all about solving the right problem."

Elyse Girard, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA

"I have a fair amount of experience in participating in Discovery work (though I'm Content Strategist and not a UX Researcher) and still learned a good bit from this course. The presenter was excellent, I really enjoyed my breakout session team and the online logistics were seamless. Well done!"

Susan Janes-Johnson, Regions Bank, Birmingham, U.S.

"Great course for getting a good overview of what goes into doing a discovery, with excellent breakout sessions where you get to tackle a problem together in a group."

Annika Madejska, Nitor, Finland

"Really loved the organisation of this course and the incorporated activities. Maria was an excellent teacher and the materials were well presented with further readings, references and resources provided at every stage. I am new to this area, so I gained an awful lot of new knowledge. Thank you so much! Course ran super smoothly and Rachel worked in such perfectly timed sync with Maria, that all of the related links, polls break-outs were added with pin-point accuracy. Brilliant teamwork."

Lani Raukawa Field, Signify Ltd, Wellington, Aotearoa, New Zealand

"Very nice overview of the process itself and great online experience — I was expecting some technical difficulties and faced none. Thanks!"

Monika, Vinted, Vilnius, Lithuania

"I am very grateful to have taken this course with Maria Rosala. Maria is a brilliant presenter; She covers the material at just the right speed, in just the right depth, making sure to never rush and ensure everyone clearly understands the content before moving on."

Christopher Butler, Accenture

"I feel this course was really well done and will be immediately applicable to my work. I appreciated the opportunities to ask questions and get useful answers very quickly."

Bryan Jayne, WebMD Health Services

"I learnt a great deal not just about how to run discoveries, but also how to convince stakeholders that it is crucial. The instructor was great, and answered our questions very well!"

Tan Sei Yee, Government Technology Agency, Singapore

"Makes you realise how important it is to understand and define the problem statement and the different ways to arrive at it."

Deb Ghosh, UK

"Great primer on how to get started on projects to identify and uncover what you don't know, and align stakeholders on what you are hoping to achieve."

Lynne Venart, US Holocaust Memorial Museum

"This course filled my back pockets with a lot of tactical strategies to frame problems, and scale the discovery process upon, as opposed to rolling the ball with business requirements that are built based on assumptions about what the right solution is, oftentimes with full of biases. As a solo-person-team, I've also learned that the discovery phase will be much more effective in a collective effort, and not in isolation."

Constanza Schmidt, GoPro, San Mateo, California

"This course is worth taking to know the ins and outs of discoveries, and how everything comes together with stakeholders, user research and delivery."

Tia Escobar, UXC, Web.com Group, Jacksonville, FL

"This course filled in some gaps in my knowledge about the Discovery phase, and offered concrete tools I can use moving forward. It was well-paced and covered about as much information as i could absorb in a day. Maria and Kim managed the online format incredibly well, further cementing my preference over in-person conferences."

Turi Henderson-Palmer, Zone, London, UK

"I can see how I will start to tackle problems with a more open-minded approach, rather than getting lost in solutions and details too quickly."

Jamie, Idean, London

"Any designer/researcher who is working on a new project should take this class."

Dawn, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Orlando

"Maria was outstanding. Despite the virtual setting, she still found a way to create a personal connection with the attendees while simultaneously teaching and sharing her expertise. I have immediate action items I can take back to work tomorrow."

Basil Frye, Authentic, Richmond, VA, US

"This course is a great way to stretch your brain while learning how to become a better problem solver."

Allison Luetschwager, Delta Dental of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, WI

"This course went really well. I've attended in person in the past and I found that I didn't miss the in-person aspect as much as I thought I would. For example, the group exercises went really well, I met new people and I felt like part of a team. Overall there was a really good balance between group exercises and the lecture component."

Sara Bergquist, Government of Yukon, Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada

"I never know how valuable a true discovery phase is until I took this course. This should be a requirement for all UX and business professionals."

 

"If you have run discovery studies, if you are interested in them in any way, shape, or form, take this course! It is a great resource in navigating different aspects of discoveries and showing the value of the investment it takes to run them. This was an extremely thorough and helpful course overall!"

Irem Alatas, Argo AI

"If you're fresh to UX or a barrel-aged alum, Maria delivers a top-notch course on Discovery for anyone in the UX world."

Robert Dudley, BeyondTrust

"I loved the examples from the instructor's prior work experience. I also found the pictures of the different types of maps helpful in solidifying when and how you use the maps."

Mary Cook, University of Virginia, Information Technology Services, Charlottesville, USA

"This course provided a systematic approach to running a discovery exercise. The instructor was knowledgeable, pleasant, and an engaging speaker and the course was well run with a good mix of presentation and interaction."

Christopher Kearns, Voxy, New York

"This feels like a very valuable course to take sooner than later in your UX career. I feel I am now set up with a strong foundation to save time in the future and focus on the right problems from the start. Thank you Maria!"

Allie, AWS, Seattle, United States

"It was extremely interactive which is difficult to achieve with the current virtual status. Both the speaker and moderator did a wonderful job facilitating the session and I was able to come out with a higher understand of the upfront research process and I can take these skills/insights back to my team."

 

"This is a great course. It changed my view on discovery with a framework, information on activities, on schedule and on artifacts. I feel more confident next time I start a UX project!"

Hernani Alves, Talkdesk, Portugal

"It is a good course to take if you're on the Research side of UX learning, which I am and I found it beneficial. What I liked about the course is the importance of doing a discovery early on in the project to uncover your findings and report it along with an How Might We statements."

Trinise Luster, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Atlanta

"Recommended for everyone. It targets the importance of the discovery phase, problem framing, mapping to improve the chances of business implementing product/services successfully."

Georges Klopotowski, Escient, Melbourne, Australia

"I benefited from the course since the instructor was full of experience and knowledge and clearly delivered important points. I would recommend this to other people since it's a great chance to learn more outside of daily work and to think about how I can improve my current work process."

Jiyeong Lee, Fincite GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany

"Maria is an amazing instructor, the course is very well structured, informative, enjoyable and fun!"

Mohammed Alanazi, HUED, Riyadh/Saudi Arabia

"I would tell people to take lots of notes, to be ready to go over various topics, to be fully engaged. This course requires a good amount of attention! I feel as though I really benefited from going over how to do a discovery stage as well as going over how to "sell" the phase as something that's useful. Too many people jump right into the building phase, but after taking this course, I have a better understanding of how to prove the importance of the discovery phase."

Ghezal, Global Affairs Canada

"I found the case studies and given examples directly applicable to my role as a user researcher working to define a discovery phase at my company; the mix of group work and lessons gave me an opportunity to flex new learnings in an applied setting, which was perfect for cementing learnings."

Elle Gover, Detroit Labs

"Essential course for those who want to make a product that really matters. You'll learn how to frame your problem, research it and come up with user issues that need to be addressed, not a pack of features to be built."

Rafael Bacchetti, Samsung, São Paulo, Brazil

"I learned how to employ, run, and, convice my team and stakeholders to embrace discovery before we move into solutioning ideas."

Derik Schneider, Nutrien Ag Solutions, Albany

"I would definitely refer anyone to this course; new and old to the UX research process. This course provided me with a lot of resources and information I could use to take back to my team and organization to provide better products to our clients."

Chris Calderon, Appddiction Studio, San Antonio

"Maria is a brilliant instructor. She delivered the content at the right pace and took a generous amount of time
to answer our questions and review our group activities, even after the course was finished. She was also open for feedback about the course, which is such a humble gesture."

Daniel González López, Microsoft, Madrid, Spain

"Excellent course taking us through all the important steps for a successful discovery. Maria is very knowledgable, and delivered at great pace. I thoroughly enjoyed it, learned some new techniques and can’t wait until my next one."

Janice Hannaway, JAH Training & Consultancy, Scotland

"If you want to focus on UX research this course a good start."

Coleen Morris, Booz Allen Hamilton, USA

"It's a great roadmap for discovery on any type of project and is relatable for any project as well-really brings to
light the value of the process, some wonderful tools and just how much great conversation can happen as a team and within the company that would benefit each aspect."

Shannon Wall, Fusion Medical Staffing, Omaha

"The case studies are extremely useful and Maria provided a comfortable environment where (it felt like) students felt confident to ask all kinds of questions."

Roshine Bagha, The Stars group, Wakefield, UK

"Awesome course that gives you a lot of knowledge and information along with many examples on how you can use and implement your learnings. Maria is amazing!"

Simina Megyes, Syneto, Timisoara, Romania

"Maria, Kate, and N/N Group put together a great course on Discovery. They provided insightful information with real world examples, and were outstanding in answering the array of questions the group thew at them. Impressed with how well this was run. I would highly recommend."

Patrick Diaz, Genentech, South San Francisco

"Very well structured content, group work and over all detail and experience. Thank you very much Maria, Kate and the NN Group team for an awesome online course. I know this is the first time for the online format and it can be quite hard to have the same experience as the conference. But being an attendee of a previous conference, I can say this format achieved the same level of excellence. On the other hand, the practice of UX is gaining momentum in Latin America and in countries such as Peru. The online format enables more practicioners to learn from you guys and continue to build the practice in the region. Once again, thank you very much, will continue to enjoy your courses in the following weeks."

Alejandro Nadal, Seek, Lima, Peru

"This course helped me understand how to make discoveries less messy by having defined planning and strategy. I think the frameworks shown will be very important to achieve a structured methodology."

Cristina Relvas, Feeedzai, Lisbon

"I will definitely stop solutioneering and will start discovering thanks to this great course! The pace of the course was also great, loved it, and would definitely take it again."

Yolany Alcantara, Laureate Education Inc., Honduras

"This course really helped by giving concrete processes and strategies to perform Discover phase, as well as compelling arguments to make advocating for the value of the time spent on Discovery."

Hayley Staten, Cerner, Kansas City, USA

"This course was fantastic - I learned a lot through the group work, even over Zoom."

Matt, XPO, Chicago, USA

"This course is crucial for anyone whose mission is to create better user experiences (i.e. everyone!)."

Rachael Moses, Abercrombie & Fitch, Columbus, Ohio, USA

"Take it! I like that this course covered the entire discovery phase, from start to end. I walked away with strategies that I can incorporate in my work immediately and came away with concepts to share with teammates and stakeholders who are involved in our research processes. Not only were the topics a mixture of good refreshers and new approaches, but they were shared in an applicable manner."

 

"It is a great course which cover all the important aspects and importance of incorporating Discoveries in the project model to learn the real problem the users are having, rather than simply building solution based out of assumptions and not facts."

Divine Lakshmi, Austin, TX, USA

"Great course! Learned a lot and enjoyed the team sessions. The material given is going to be really beneficial to bring back to my team."

Nicole Kina, Ford Motor Company, Dearborn MI, USA

"This course is a great way to get an understanding of the skeleton of discoveries. Although no two discoveries are the same, the course gives you a better understanding of the options available to you, to uncover important insights about users, while framing the project for the ideation phase."

Oreoluwa Oduwole, Home Office, London, UK

"This course on Discoveries Building the Right Thing is an invaluable guide to those in the UX field.
By attending this training, you will learn how to focus on the right problems and ask the right questions.
For your next Discovery this learning will be your guide to success."

Ken Hughes, ONS, Cardiff, UK

"I would highly recommend it!"

Jessica Robertson, Innosphere Systems Development Group, Breslau

"I would high recommend this course to anyone as I think discoveries is key within the design process!"

Bradley Smith, Procter & Gamble, Newcastle, United Kingdom

"It is a good theoretical and practical knowledge, to advance on the processes of discovery and experimentation on design. The information provided very clear to apply immediately. It gave me other tools to apply within my research processes."

Andrés Coronado Mendoza, Medellín, Colombia

"This course helped dispel some of the ambiguity around discovery phases. I feel more empowered to use different methods in the toolkit with my stakeholders, with the knowledge that there's no one-size-fits-all approach."

Meredith Maines, Home Depot, Houston, USA

"This class set me up with a wider toolset for doing successful discoveries, and showing their value for stakeholders."

Wes Hunt, Mofiti, Bozeman, USA

"An absolute must for all digital teams! During the course you are guided through the entire discovery phase and equipped with the right toolset and knowledge to carry through into your own practice. I am going to be leading on my first discovery project and I feel confident to get started in the new year thanks to this course!"

Sian Baldwin, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

"Go for it, a good course for everyone, not "just" for designers but any team member in any level."

Samuel Bergström, tretton37, Lund, Sweden

"I highly recommend this course for anyone that has interaction with project that have discoveries."

Leon Rose, Office for National Statistics, Newport, Wales

"It's always a difficult challenge to not only deliver good discovery artefacts but to know and articulate what they are and why the business needs them. This course really helps clarify this."

Sean McSharry, UX Sanctuary, London, UK

"The class was awesome! Even though I have been through the discovery stage before but this makes me realise some of the things that I have been doing wrongly. The activities were great too! :D"

Joan, Singapore

"As someone who is new to UX and hasn't had any experience in being a part of a discovery process, I now have a good understanding of what it entails and what some of the best practices are. This well-thought-out framework has alleviated much of the uncertainty and anxiety I felt around putting these concepts into practice."

Nicole Ho, Singapore

"As a designer, this course helped me learn ways to avoid getting trapped into designing poorly thought out solutions that don't address real problems."

Gio Ledda, Ledda Studio, Cochrane

"I will recommend this course to anyone who has never done a discovery session with their teams or even done a poor man's budget discovery phase (like myself). This course has come at a great time for me in terms of my work situation and as a result I now have much clarity on how I might run a discovery session at work- what to ask or even push back with confidence because I have all the great material, templates and examples to back me up. Anna was great with answering questions. The example case studies and example workbooks are worth their weight in gold. So thanks!"

Suhasini Vempati, amaysim, Sydney, Australia

"Thanks to the content of this course and Anna's amazing delivery I am certain I will be rocking my next discovery projects!! It brings a whole different perspective on problems vs solutions. Thank you Anna and Nichole!"

Aurora Cotto, Abarca Health LLC, San Juan, Puerto Rico

"The instructor was excellent, very comprehensive course material."

Lori Stevenson, Elsevier, Park City, USA

"I'd say take it. It provides a hands-on and insightful materials that you don't necessarily heard of before and can use in practice."

Cynthia Mononutu, Manulife, Hong Kong

"I have already suggested this course to others. Out of all the other courses i have taken this has been the most productive as it outlines and brings structure to those early stage of Discovery."

Penny, Edith Cowan University, Perth Australia

"Take it! I loved that it was interactive and the speaker, Anna Kaley, was very engaged with the chat comments when they were relevant to the course content. She was very well prepared and made the course very informative and enjoyable."

Krista Rowe, Symmetri Marketing Group, Northville, MI, USA

"You should absolutely take this course if you are trying to build and advocate for better research and discovery processes in your own organization. Our team is currently defining our own processes around discovery, and this course has given me so much more to think about! Very glad I took it!"

Josh Walz, ZoCo Design, Columbus, USA

"A must-have course for anyone involved in product and UX design. I now have a framework for supporting my team in exploring new product spaces, making sure we replace assumptions with actual insights about our users, stakeholders and systems."

Lindsay, Roblox, Los Angeles, CA

"Love the is course, very informative. Really helped me understand what's missing in my design process and how to formulate a proper research plan in the Discover phase. Anna was patient with all the questions. The material and activities are very relevant, and the reference links in all slides are extremely helpful!"

Hima, SF Bay Area, USA

"Discovery: Building the Right Thing provides a super solid framework for the most important element of designing...anything! Service, product, experience, and more. Highly recommend!"

Doug Roerden, FM Global, Johnston, RI, USA

"Take it! Will be using this as a road map for updating design process at my organization."

Calliope Gazetas, North Island College, Courtenay, BC, Canada

"It's a must. I'd tell a newcomer to NN/g to make sure they take this for their first conference if it's available. I have so many projects I'm currently working on that I can't wait to take this back to."

Sarah Larkin, Independence Blue Cross, Philadelphia, PA

"I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone wanted to get an overview of the discovery process. Anna was great at presenting the content and it was all very interesting. Felt like it moved at a good pace and there was a good balance of theory and practical parts. The practical exercises were short on time, but I felt that was fine as it was just good to practise it, and then come back to the group and see what Anna's versions of the same exercise was."

Tom Jay, HandsHQ, London - UK

"Great course which provides a solid overview of the discovery phase of a project. Anna Kaley keeps things real and tells you like it is."

Bill Levy, Alpha Solutions, Portland, United States

"It's how every important project should start! This is a class not just for designers."

Jessica Kerbo, Abt Associates, Washington, DC

"This course is also for Product Managers. I'm a PM but I only know from this course because of my UX colleague. But as I am the facilitator of discovery, it is very valuable if me as a PM knows about those activities and how to tie them together."

Maximilian Kohl, Celonis, Munich, Germany

"I would say that this course is very everything and you learn a lot. All the concepts are simply explained."

Edwina Fautrai, Paris, France

"It's a really in-depth look at discoveries with all the explanations and myth-busting you need to feel confident about doing one yourself."

James Steel, Nationwide Building Society, London, UK

"Well worth it. This course teaches you how to validate and accurately define your design problem before you start developing a solution."

Charles Wyke-Smith, Doxy.me - telemedicine for all, Charleston, SC, USA

"This course is both an excellent foundation for venturing into discovery as well as a boost to take your discovery practice to the next level. I very much identified with the addressed topics, especially the challenges involved in discovery. Maria's experience and feedback were of great value, allowing me to identify behaviors and tools to assess and improve my practice."

Livier Ortiz Anaya, PwC Luxembourg, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

"The course is about a holistic approach to the discovery phase. Team activities are about crucial steps which might be ambiguous when doing for the first time. You learn how to make them right. In the end, you're leaving with a clear framework on how to structure this important and complex part of the design/production process. I gained a lot of knowledge and validated some of my assumptions, and improved on things I was doing wrong in the past."

Blaženko Davidović, Raiffeisen Bank International, Zagreb, Croatia

""Go ahead!!" I gained an understanding of what a problem is and why it is important to focus on the problem space, along with methods and best practices (tailored to each project's needs). I absolutely loved the instructor, Maria Rosala - amazing communication skills! I also appreciated the quality of the data presented, the exercises and collaborating with other practitioners. And of course thumbs up for the smooth experience in overall (really appreciated all the notifications prior to the course and the info provided)."

Amalia Tsichla, Orfium, Athens, Greece

"This course really focuses on how to get the most value out of discovery by framing the problems and findings in a way that will facilitate better solutions (rather than jumping straight to solutions, which we often do). It was so helpful to me, as the person charged with running discoveries for all of our web projects. (And the course applies to more than web projects and even UX projects.)"

Christina Huntington, Memphis, USA

"Worth taking this class, you will get a ton of great material from it. Take plenty of notes because they will certainly come in handy!"

Steve Kandianis, Verisk, Bethlehem, PA USA

"If you are looking to lead initial research (discovery) for a design project, this course gives you the tools, language, and reasoning (for your team) to lead an effective discovery phase."

Michelle Nelson, Chroma Design, San Francisco, CA

"I already tell my friend how worth well this experience to try. Deep real-life effective content based of the real life needs. Great instructor. Kind people and supportive environment for me as learner."

Shoog Saad, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

"Try to push as many people from your team to take it. It's hard to go back and convince the rest if they haven't heard of this from an expert. There is no way a team should be allowed to build a product without taking this course before."

Luis Kentzler, Celonis, Munich, Germany

"I benefitted from this course in numerous ways. I was able to meet other people, apply what I learned in real-time, and found the content to be clear and informative."

Liv Zabka, Lockheed Martin

"Great course to get you thinking critically about how to properly consider the issues you may actually need to address."

Michael Ryan, Frazer Computing, Canton, NY USA

"I did benefit and would tell people that you'll learn a lot about Discovery. The breakout rooms/ sessions were super helpful in helping to understand the concepts more clearly. The instructor was articulate and knowledgeable. 10 out of 10 sticky notes :-D"

Noah Suppin, Deloitte, Austin, TX

"Really worthwhile. Was good to sit and soak it all in in one session as it gave more time to reflect on how to put it into practice."

Claire, Cazoo, UK

"This course will absolutely prepare you for discovery work. It paired really well with the User Research class that covers all the methods of user research you could use during discovery."

Katherine Vance, Seattle, USA

"I really liked the hands on activities. It helps apply what we are learning and I like how Maria would explain this activity when we come back to our main room."

Abygail Guerrero, USAA, San Antonio, USAA

"For somebody who has a good theoretical knowledge of Discoveries but minimal practical experience of having conducted them, this course was absolutely amazing. Fear of failure due to lack of adequate experience held me back over the years from reaching out to decision-makers to initiate conversations on and persuade them for conducting discoveries. This course has given me the much-needed confidence to not just persuade them but also to help conduct them with the team (including the stakeholders) in the true spirit and the right manner. Thanks a ton, Maria."

Praveen Bandaru, Cognizant, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK