Whether you are a product owner, a stakeholder, or a service designer, it is essential to plan your project ahead of time. It is precisely the same with user research. There is a clear step-by-step process to go through before starting research.
The process may vary depending on the stage or the phase you are. I highly recommend you look at whether you require user research at an early stage.
Skipping the discovery phase is common. Once you arrive in alpha, or even close to the beta phase (see Chapter 2), user research ends up being rushed. Ideally, user research should occur at ...
