Trace Where the Need Changed Meaning Along the Handoff Chain
The Handoff Chain Trace
Companion to You Are Not the User · Updated 2026-09-29
Use this when a shipped feature surprised the people it was built for and you want to see exactly where the meaning changed. Worked in “Every Handoff Loses Information.”
The Handoff Chain Trace: one row per link, the user’s words at the top.
| Link, and who | What it became (their exact words or artifact) | What it kept, and what it dropped |
|---|---|---|
| User: | ||
| Support: | ||
| Customer Success: | ||
| Product: | ||
| Design: | ||
| Engineering: | ||
| QA: | ||
| Internal UAT: | ||
| User: |
Fill in the middle column from the actual artifacts, never from memory, and skip or add links to match your feature’s real path. Then read the right-hand column top to bottom: the first row where the decision the user was trying to make disappears is where the next feature needs a real user in the room.