The first days of a study decide what it will really be about. This is how we spend them.
Day one: the question
We start by writing down the question we think we are asking, then questioning it. Not a hypothesis to prove, a question to stay honest with. We want to know what would genuinely surprise us.
Days two and three: looking closely
We spend time with the thing itself, longer than feels necessary. We use it, take it apart and watch other people use it. We read what people say about it in reviews, forums and support threads. The most useful observations are rarely the ones we went looking for. They are in the habits people don’t notice they have.
Day four: the landscape
We look at what came before and what sits around it. When everything in a category solves the same problem in the same way, that shared pattern shows us where the interesting questions are.
Day five: the first draft of the idea
We write down what we saw, what surprised us, and a first attempt at the one sentence the study could stand on. It is rarely final. It is always a better starting point than a blank page, and it means everything we sketch or make afterwards has a reason to exist.