How to build a design problem for valuable products using the PACT Framework?
“The core purpose of design is to meet the needs of a specific population. A well-designed product is created to be helpful and practical. By accurately pinpointing a design challenge, businesses can save time in development and manufacturing, enhance the consumer experience, and increase a product’s influence in the market.”
The quest to define the need that a product will fulfill is an enduring mystery in the design world across all fields. This challenge is often compounded by the designer’s biases during the information-gathering process.
In many enterprises with extensive market experience, it’s common for the user interface designer, responsible for creating original graphical user interfaces, to be distinct from the one evaluating them, and both of these individuals may differ from the one gathering user requirements. This approach is taken to minimize confirmation biases throughout the process.
In this editorial piece, we will explore a comprehensive method for framing a problem from a design perspective, drawing from David Benyon’s PACT framework. This approach aims to ensure that the resulting product genuinely addresses the authentic needs of users.
What is a design problem?
A design problem is a real-world need that impacts a population and can be effectively addressed through an artifact, such as an object or a service. The impact of this need must be evident, supported by data, and traceable.
It is crucial to underpin a design “problem” with data and iterate upon it until a clear premise is established. For instance, complex websites like CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or ERPs (Enterprise Resource Planning) often struggle to demonstrate their value proposition effectively despite their demos giveaway. These websites face a significant challenge in converting visitors into customers due to their learnability. To illustrate, let’s create a hypothetical problem:
“90% of inexperienced users who visit a CRM website leave without making a purchase.”
Before running into design solutions, it is crucial to establish solid foundations. By defining the problems, we can pinpoint key indicators to monitor the enhancement of our product. In the specific example, the presented problem directly influences product sales conversions and boosts the value of business leads. The causes of this issue may range from an unfocused value proposition to a poorly designed graphical interface with inadequate Calls To Action.
What is the PACT Framework?
Once the problem has been clearly defined, it’s essential to consider the PACT framework (People, Activities, Context, and Technology) developed by David Benyon in 2005. This framework provides a toolkit to guide the design process of digital products, including well-known tools such as card sorting, paper prototyping, and user workflows. The value of PACT lies in its focus on the four fundamental aspects that align with a typical contextual analysis in the design exercise.
This method enables the designer to define a problem more effectively by identifying the specific dimension it falls into and understanding its impact on the other dimensions. Taking the example of CRM from the earlier discussion, it is essential to analyze the problem from these four perspectives.
Taking the PACT approach, we can dissect the primary problem into more specific issues, including users being unfamiliar with this type of service, complex products with a steep learning curve, a high bounce rate on the main CTA of the site, extended loading times, and poor visualization on mobile devices. It’s essential to acknowledge that we are unable to tackle all of these issues concurrently. We cannot instantaneously turn our inexperienced users into CRM experts, nor can we instantly streamline our services. Moreover, problems such as responsive design and loading times may stem from subpar technical design and development practices, so resolving them does not automatically guarantee improved product sales.
How do I go from PACT to the problem?
To synthesize PACT results into a premise, it’s important to understand that it’s a cyclical process. You may need to conduct multiple contextual analyses to clearly define the problem with the desired scope.
When prioritizing our tasks, we should focus on addressing the dimension that has the most significant impact, as improving its current state can provide substantial benefits for the company in terms of enhancing user experience or system performance.
In this scenario, our problem priority should be as follows: the activity dimension takes precedence, followed by user, technological, and contextual issues. Typically, lower-priority concerns are resolved by tackling higher-priority issues or are eventually translated into requirements related to system performance and usability. Always remembering that this prioritization may vary based on the specific project or problem.
Finally, we can narrow down our problem into one or several premises that allow us to understand it. In this case, one of them will be the one previously posed, where we relate the 90% bounce rate to the inexperienced user.
Problem 1:
“A 90% of inexperienced users who visit a CRM website leave without acquiring the service.”
Problem 2:
“Loading times are 15 seconds, 12 seconds above what is suggested to keep a user in the flow. This affects service sales conversions.”
At first glance, we can see that each problem has a clear solution focus, whether at a technical level with reduced loading times or improving consumer experience (CX) through better service communication. Additionally, the problem already presents metrics that will serve as tools to determine if it has been solved or if there is still room for improvement. These metrics must be translated into system requirements once the definition process begins.
Conclusions
In this article, we introduce an alternative method for defining “problems”, that relies on data directly obtained from contextual analysis, a common practice in industrial design. The PACT framework, influenced by user-centered design principles, emphasizes prioritizing the individual when creating an artifact. Designers should strive to integrate these theoretical frameworks into their design practice, enhancing the discipline through practical application in case studies.
References
Benyon, D (2005) Designing_interactive_systems_People_activities_co.
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