When it comes to building better products, the UX research and discovery phase is all about clarifying our perspective and checking the assumptions we hold about user behavior.
While specialist UX researchers are usually the ones responsible for the UX research process, there are times when the product manager may be tasked with conducting it. Be it time constraints or a lack of budget, the PM is, in such situations, the next person to take up the bastion of UX research.
The purpose of conducting UX research and discovery exercises is to gather reliable insights that can guide product teams’ decisions. Good insight is key to building useful and resilient product features, whereas weak and unfounded insights can result in a bad and inconsistent user experience.