Name: Practical Design Discovery
Author: Dan Brown
ISBN: 978-1-952616-33-4

foreword by Kim Goodwin

Discovery isn’t just the first step in successful design work—it’s the most essential one.

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Design discovery is crucial to a project’s success—unite your team in an approach toward a common goal. Explore the role of discovery in product design, how to use and structure your favorite techniques for success, and how to synthesize and document what you learn. With Dan Brown’s flexible framework for planning and practicing discovery activities, you’ll set every design endeavor on the right path.

Topics Covered

Discovery Defined
Frame the Problem
Set the Direction
Plan Your Approach
Document the Outcome

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If Dan gives a talk, I listen to get fresh insights. If Dan writes a book, I buy it, knowing it will contain exactly what my students need to level up. His new book on discovery is no exception. It’s insightful, accessible, and wonderfully practical. The next generation of designers will be better than the last because of Practical Design Discovery.

Christina Wodtke

Author of Radical Focus

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Every day, product people get stuck in the trap of building instead of learning. In this book, Dan focuses on what really makes a great product: a discovery mindset. Along the way, he demystifies the process and provides a practical guide to start discovering your users’ real needs.

Janna Bastow

CEO of ProdPad and founder of Mind The Product

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I have long been a practitioner and proponent of product discovery, and yet I learned a great deal from this book. It lays a good foundation for the approach, addresses some of discovery’s shortcomings I’ve experienced in the past, and gave me great new ideas to try in my projects, to boot. Above all, it made me excited about the power of discovery—I recommend Dan’s book without reservation.

Rian Van Der Merwe

Author of Making It Right: Product Management for a Startup World

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About the Author

Dan Brown is a web designer and cofounder of EightShapes, LLC, a Washington, DC-based design firm he opened with Nathan Curtis in 2006. Dan’s portfolio includes work with Fortune 500 clients, nonprofits, industry associations, higher education, and the federal government. Prior to Practical Design Discovery, Dan wrote two books: Communicating Design (New Riders, 2011) explores how designers document their ideas and Designing Together (New Riders, 2013) promotes better collaboration. Teams all over the world have played his game Surviving Design Projects, to learn and practice conflict management skills. He tweets as @brownorama about design, management, board games, parenthood, and coffee.