All the activities described so far were meant to enable designers to fuse business and audience perspectives, and emerge with a product strategy that is focused on user experience as a means to achieving product success.

Getting to this point can take between a few weeks and a few months, depending on multiple factors, such as the complexity of the product, the number and types of research activities, size of the design team, and so on.

Research establishes a starting point for the design, a baseline understanding of the product's audience and audience segments. For existing products, it is an assessment of the gaps between the product's promise, the expectations it builds, and the customer's assessments of has been delivered. The wider that gap, the higher the risk of weakening a hold, or losing market share.

The next chapter takes on the topic of a user-centered discovery and research activities--activities that complement and expend the contextual foundation designers must establish in order to form an experience product strategy.