This is part of the series on how design can help you build better product.
As you may have known, there are 6 stages in the design thinking framework: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, and implement. However, it doesn’t mean that we have to follow these 6 stages rigidly in practice and fall into the trap of dogmatism. Frameworks are just guidelines. It’s important to stay flexible and nimble and adapt to our own circumstances.
To me, the most important things from the framework are finding the right problem to solve and testing ideas.
Product ideas can come from experience, assumptions or intuitions, not necessarily from lengthy, grand user research.
Additionally, user research, if not done properly, could lead to superficial results. Getting to a feasible product idea is not so much about where ideas come from, but more about testing them quickly and minimally.
Also, a user pain point doesn’t always imply product opportunities. Before getting excited about and married to an idea, be very careful about any existing solutions to the problem you’re trying to solve. If an effective solution or a similar product already exists, it could be harder for your idea to do well in the market. That’s why doing a competitor analysis is so important.
Failing to look at the market landscape and differentiate your idea from existing competitors can have huge consequences.
A good example is the new keyboard layouts that aim to increase typing speed and reduce fatigue. The Dovrak layout claims that it requires less finger motions, reduces errors, increases speed, and reduces strain injuries, while the colemak layout claims to be able to minimize finger path distances, leading to faster speed and reduced strain.
Both of these new layouts say that they offer a better typing experience than the traditional QWERTY layout, but then why haven’t they been able to replace QWERTY? That’s because users are already used to QWERTY and QWERTY is good enough for them. The benefit that users can get from these improvements is not big enough to justify the switching cost, the time and energy spent on learning and adjusting to the new layouts.
So if you were the product designer who thought about creating another keyboard layout, you probably should have examined this idea using the following questions first.
- Is there a user pain or problem here?
- Is the pain painful enough?
- Is there an existing solution?
- Is the existing solution good enough?
- Is this the right problem to solve?
By answering the questions above, you’ll be able to have a more realistic estimate of the potential of your ideas.
