Demystifying Discovery: Building the foundation for a lovable app

[Editor's note: In this blog series, “Demystifying Discovery,” we explore how our proven Discovery Process is crucial to align project stakeholders on the true business opportunity and user needs, leading to more successful digital products.]

Product managers, designers, engineers, QAs – we're all makers at heart. We know the familiar temptation to jump in and start building. But after 15+ years of creating successful products, we at ArcTouch have learned that the best apps start with our proven Discovery Process. It's how our team and our clients can dream big, but still create a realistic plan for app success. Together.

Often, new clients come to us with promising, but loosely defined, product ideas. During the ArcTouch Discovery Process, we collaborate to refine those ideas and expand the details. By the end of this phase, we have a common understanding of what we're building, how we'll build it, and when it will launch. A strong Discovery Process is essential for setting a cohesive strategy and ensuring everyone is aligned for success.

In this blog series' introductory post, we explore the three biggest reasons why a discovery phase is essential for app success: aligning stakeholder priorities, visualizing the app's potential, and anticipating technical risks. 

We answer two common questions: What do clients get from the Discovery Process, and is it really necessary? In the rest of this blog series, we'll dive deeper into the specifics of our process.

The magic of the Discovery Workshop

The real magic of our Discovery Process happens when we bring together our team and a client’s stakeholders for a collaborative Discovery Workshop. Participants from ArcTouch include leadership in design, product, and engineering. Client participants vary, but typically include key stakeholders, subject-matter experts, and those with a deeper understanding of the target user. 

Before the Discovery Workshop, clients complete our Discovery Workshop Preparation Checklist — which covers a broad range of topics, from high-level product features to competitive research and technology.  We review this information and conduct our own research and concept ideation in advance of our in-person meetings.

For our team, Discovery is about deeply understanding our client's world. For our work with Hawaiian Airlines, this meant flying to Oahu (on Hawaiian Airlines, of course!), experiencing the product and service firsthand, and meeting the team and some of their guests. We discovered that many locals commute daily between islands on Hawaiian Airlines, just like a regional commuter bus. This insight shaped our design to cater to both vacationers and daily commuters.

For our clients, Discovery is an opportunity to learn about all the factors involved in creating a lovable app. For those new to app development, we share our expertise in best practices, common risks, and delightful user experiences. For experienced clients, we provide an outside perspective and fresh approaches to problem-solving.

Together, we participate in organized discussions and activities – the specifics of which we’ll cover in our next blog post – to surface user needs and exchange valuable insights. Perhaps most importantly, before everyone leaves the Workshop, we ensure that all stakeholders are completely aligned on the project roadmap, which is paramount to project success and avoiding costly misunderstandings. 

Design concepts and prototyping: Visualizing the future

As a designer, I'm a visual learner. I need to see things to understand them fully. After the initial workshops, we move beyond the theoretical and start creating early design concepts and prototypes.

Discovery is the perfect time to find inspiration, talk to users, develop new ideas, align on information architecture, visualize the app's look and feel, and gather feedback from stakeholders. We typically focus on high-level conceptual designs and key user flows.

For example, with Midtown Athletic Club, we spent three days on-site in Chicago, interviewing members, instructors, and staff to understand their needs. We then created prototypes to gather feedback from a range of members — including disabled users on Fable’s platform to ensure accessibility.

At a Discovery Workshop in Chicago, project team members from ArcTouch and Midtown Athletic Club work through exercises to align on business priorities.

Throughout Discovery, our designers review progress with our clients weekly — and sometimes more frequently — and continually iterate based on feedback. Our product managers ensure the early designs are aligned with agreed-upon business goals. And our technical leads and engineers ensure the features we design are feasible and can be implemented efficiently. By the end, we have created a common vision for what the app will look like and how it will behave. This experiential and visual alignment is crucial as we launch into the build phases of the project. By addressing any design ambiguities, we pave the way for development success.    

Anticipating risk and saving money during development

In addition to collaborating with designers, our tech leads dive into the technical requirements during Discovery, crucial up-front research that can help identify unknowns and answer questions that otherwise can derail projects later and escalate costs. 

Among the major tasks, our engineers assess APIs and integrations to identify data needed for the best experience. We verify that the software architecture will scale and recommend solutions tailored to their unique needs. This establishes a solid technical strategy before development begins. 

Our robust Discovery Process reduces implementation risk by identifying and addressing unknowns early. Sometimes, Discovery reveals that clients need to address underlying business systems or data before investing in an app.

For example, our Discovery Workshop with Common Sense Media led to a conclusion that an app would benefit from a subscription model for premium features. However, the technical and operational pieces for such a model didn’t exist yet in their business.

Instead of prematurely rushing into app development, we recommended that they build and test the business logic on their website first. They returned months later, and we built an app that converted free members to paid subscribers at rates far exceeding their initial forecasts.

Similarly, a technical nuance of the court reservation system for the Midtown Athletic Club app was discovered during our workshop that spared us the potential for rework later. 

What do we get from Discovery, and how long will it take? 

No two Discovery phases are the same. They range from 2 to 12 weeks and are customized for each client based on their business stage and goals. We don't believe in a one-size-fits-all approach or churning out generic deliverables. Instead, we use a variety of tools and techniques to:

1. Clarify what is going to be built

2. Visually communicate business and user needs 

3. Get stakeholder buy-in 

4. Make high-confidence recommendations and realistic estimations

Here are examples of what you might expect from our Discovery Process:

• A 2- to 4-week Discovery Process might focus on mapping out the overall architecture, creating wireframes of key user flows, and synthesizing product and technical recommendations.  

• A 4- to 8-week Discovery Process might add executing user testing and creating storyboards, higher-fidelity designs, tappable prototypes, high-level roadmaps, and technical diagrams.

• An 8- to 12-week Discovery Process might add multiple rounds of user testing, creating more in-depth user flows, iterating on visual UI styles, defining a detailed product roadmap, and writing comprehensive technical documentation.   

Can’t we just skip the Discovery Process?

All products evolve as you learn from your users. But skipping discovery – without understanding all perspectives and building alignment – almost always makes a project riskier and more expensive.

If your plan is to skip discovery to have a faster launch and rework the UX and technical architecture later, in our experience, those pivots end up being more like a tear-down rebuild than a simple remodel. More importantly, you risk building a product that doesn't meet user or business needs, and may not get a second chance.

Some clients come to us after working with other agencies that cranked out features without a cohesive vision. As a result, they experience low retention or acquisition rates. Or, the technical foundation doesn't scale, requiring a complete rebuild. This means rework and added costs for everyone.

As Ben Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” Building a high-quality, lovable product involves many moving parts and collaboration. ArcTouch’s Discovery Process ensures everyone is on the same page from the start.

Let’s build something lovable. Together.

Ready to build a truly lovable app that delights your customers and drives real business results? Contact us today to learn how the ArcTouch Discovery Process sets your project up for success.