Teams often know their product too well to see it clearly. They know where the settings live, what the icons mean and which step can be skipped. Customers know none of this, and the gap between the two is where most usability problems hide.
A redesign built on those assumptions can look fresh and still repeat every old problem. Watching comes first because it shows which problems are real, and which only exist in meeting rooms.
Watch, do not ask
Asking people what they want produces polite answers and a list of features. Watching them try to finish a real task produces something more useful: the moment they hesitate, go back or give up. Those moments are the brief.
Give each person a task in plain words, such as renewing a policy or finding last month's order, and then stay quiet. The urge to help is strong. Resisting it is most of the skill.
A handful is enough to start
A common rule of thumb is that around five sessions reveal most of the serious problems in a single flow. By the fourth or fifth person, the same issues tend to repeat. That is the signal to stop, fix what you found and test again, rather than recruit twenty more people for the same round.
Several small rounds also suit the way design actually progresses. Each round tests the fixes from the last one, and the problems found get steadily smaller and more specific.
Recruit the right five
The sessions only help if the people resemble your customers. Colleagues, friends and the founder's family are convenient, but they already know too much. For a product used across India, that may mean people in more than one city, on the phones they actually own, in the language they prefer.
Sessions can be short. Twenty to thirty minutes per person, in person or over a video call with screen sharing, is usually enough for one or two tasks. A small thank-you, such as a voucher, helps people turn up.
Record behaviour, not impressions
Notes should describe what happened: where someone tapped, what they said aloud, how long they paused. Interpretation comes later, when the team looks across all the sessions together.
A short list of problems, ranked by how many people ran into each one, is enough to decide where the redesign starts. It also settles arguments that would otherwise run for weeks.
