From Chaos to Clarity: The Role of UXR in Defining Requirements

Working in a complex and unfamiliar domain is already like playing dodgeball with curveballs — you never know what’s coming next. But nothing quite prepares you for waking up on a random Wednesday, coffee in hand, only to find that the feature you signed off and sent into development last sprint has magically grown a new requirement overnight. Cue the alarm bells.

Determined to get to the bottom of it, I headed into the office, ready to investigate this sudden case of requirement creep. That’s when the product analyst calmly explained it was just a “small business decision” and wouldn’t “change much on the interface.” So I should just go ahead and slip it in. Easy, right?

And just like that, I was transported to the Schitt’s Creek episode ‘Family Dinner’, where Moira — sweeping into the kitchen with grand ambition — attempts to teach David how to cook. The chaos peaks when she vaguely instructs him to “fold in the cheese,” offering no further clarification, as he spirals into a panic.

In that moment, I was David. I was being asked to “fold in the requirement” with no context, no clarity, and certainly no user research.

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So what really causes this sneaky little thing called requirement creep to slither into product teams? More often than not, it’s a greatest hits collection of messy processes and well-intentioned chaos:

• When no one defines clear goals upfront, the feature becomes a suggestion box. Everyone’s tossing in “just one more thing” because, hey, why not?

• Business priorities shift mid-sprint, and feedback arrives fashionably late — sometimes after development has already begun.

• There’s no formal process to review or gatekeep updates, so changes stroll in like they own the place.

• Product, UX, and dev teams start reading from different playbooks, and suddenly everyone has a different idea of what’s in or out of scope.

• And of course, the crowd-pleasing classic — adding a little something for every stakeholder. Because saying no is apparently illegal.

In my case? It was a delightful mix of all of the above. We were building a greenfield product from scratch — no legacy, no baseline, just a blank canvas inviting everyone to add their “little tweak.” Before I knew it, every brainstorm became an impromptu feature pitch.

And the worst part? When changes sneak in without proper reviews, they don’t just pad the backlog — they unravel everything. You end up with bloated scope, missed deadlines, exhausted teams, and a Frankenstein product that does a million things… none of them particularly well. The UX? A muddled mess. The interface? Inconsistent. The vision? Long gone.

Ugh. The ultimate nightmare recipe for any product designer. I mean, fold in the cheese was starting to feel like a generous instruction compared to “just add this one small thing.”

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But enough about the what and the why. Let’s talk about the magic ingredient that can actually stop this chaotic culinary disaster in its tracks.

User research. The secret sauce. The game changer. The “oh wait, do users even want this?” moment that brings clarity, alignment, and purpose back to the table.

And just like that — poof — I brought the conversation back to the one voice that often gets drowned out in a sea of opinions: the user. I told the business team, “Cool idea, but let’s ask the people who’ll actually be using this thing.” Instead of quietly folding the requirement into the mix, I proposed a quick wireframe test to gauge if it was truly a must-have.

I rounded up five users, walked them through the idea, and waited for the magic. The verdict? A polite shrug. It was a “nice to have,” not a “we need this yesterday.” And just like that — I was redeemed. The feature was spared from the backlog, and we avoided another slice of scope creep.

Building on that win, I introduced a process that actually worked: post-research, we’d host mini design thinking sessions to align on what truly mattered. Quick brainstorms, smart prioritization, and everyone — business stakeholders, product analysts, devs, and even QA — got a seat at the table. No more surprises. Every requirement was either born from user research or validated through testing.

Suddenly, we weren’t folding in random ingredients — we were following a recipe. A user-centered one.