Define

Define

Start

Phase Two

to define the core problems

index

Intro

TOOLS

why?

The problem statement?

how?

+ info

Without a well-defined problem statement, it’s hard to know what direction – and aim – is needed.

The work will lack focus, and the final design will suffer.

Not only that:

in the absence of a clear problem statement, it’s extremely difficult to explain to stakeholders and team members exactly what to achieve.

By designing a solution that satisfies this need, the user can be satisfied and ensure a pleasant user experience.

"I am a young professional who tries to eat healthy, but I find it difficult because I work long hours and don't always have time to shop for food and prepare my meals. This makes me feel frustrated and I have low self-esteem".

"Busy professionals need an easy, time-efficient way to eat healthy because they often work long hours and don't have time to shop and prepare meals."

"Our young professional has difficulty eating healthy during the week because she works long hours. Our solution should give her a quick and easy way to get ingredients and prepare healthy meals to take to work."

A good problem statement is human-centered and user-focused.

This requires you to frame your problem statement according to specific users, their needs and the insights that your team has gained in the Empathize phase.

The problem statement should be about the people the team is trying to help, rather than focusing on technology, monetary returns or product specifications.

Broad enough for creative freedom

A good problem statement leaves room for innovation and creative freedom

This means that the problem statement should not focus too narrowly on a specific method regarding the implementation of the solution. The problem statement should also not list technical requirements, as this would unnecessarily restrict the team and prevent them from exploring areas that might bring unexpected value and insight to the project.

• Let your interviewees tell you stories, and always ask "why" to discover deeper meaning. Engagement can come from both short on-demand encounters and longer scheduled conversations.
• Engaging extreme users - Find the extreme cases within your customer base to identify the highest level of user needs, problems, and problem-solving methods. This allows you to identify the full range of issues that typical, non-extreme users might face. If you can satisfy an extreme user, you can satisfy any user.
• In addition, it is always a good idea to conduct interviews with people who have hands-on experience with what you are trying to develop. When interviewing, try to put yourself in your users' shoes. You REALLY want to know what drives them, what frustrates them, and what their values are regarding the product.

Make it manageable: At the same time, your problem statement should guide you and provide direction.

On the other hand, a problem statement such as, “Improve the human condition,” is too broad and will likely cause team members to easily feel daunted. Problem statements should have sufficient constraints to make the project manageable

tools

DEFINE

collection of tools

Tools

The 4 W's

The POV

Saturating

Why-How laddering

"As a general rule, asking 'why’ yields more abstract statements and asking 'how’yields specific statements. Often times abstract statements are more meaningful but not as directly actionable, and the opposite is true of more specific statements."

In other words, who is your target user; who will be the focus of your problem statement?

Based on the observations you made during the empathize phase, what are the problems and pain-points that frequently came up? What task is the user trying to accomplish, and what’s standing in their way?

In what space (physical or digital), situation or context is the user when they face this problem? Are there any other people involved?

Why is it important that this problem be solved? What value would a solution bring to the user, and to the business?

Approaching your observations with these four questions in mind will help you to identify patterns within your user research. In identifying the most prevalent issues, you’ll be one step closer to formulating a meaningful problem statement.

Designers engage with users (people) to understand their needs and gain insights about their lives. We also draw inspiration from their work-arounds and frameworks.

When you speak with and observe extreme users the needs are amplified and their work-arounds are often more notable.

This helps you pull out meaningful needs that may not pop when engaging with the middle of the bell curve.

However, the needs that are uncovered through extreme users are often needs of a wider population.

Determining who is an extreme user starts with considering what aspect of your design challenge you want explore to an extreme. List a number of facets to explore within your design space. Then think of people who may be extreme in those facets.

For example, if you are redesigning the grocery store shopping experience you might consider the following aspects: how groceries are gathered, how payment is made, how purchase choices are made, how people get their groceries home, etc.

Then to consider the aspect of gathering groceries, for example, you might talk to professional shoppers, someone who uses a shopping cart to gather recyclables (and thus overloads the cart), product pullers for online buyers, people who bring their kids shopping with them, or someone who doesn’t go to grocery stores (and ask why).

Recursos