The first step in the design process, also referred to as “Discovery”, involves the same initial effort required for any new business challenge: identifying and empathizing with your target user and their needs. This effort to deeply understand your users includes activities like market research, UX research, conducting user interviews, and finally, bringing together all of the information you’ve discovered so that it contributes to and improves your design thinking. This step takes longer when you’re designing a brand new product or if your design project is complex, like an application, website, or comprehensive digital experience, because the amount of user research you’d need to fully empathize with your end user is greater.