Why unearthing questions is valuable through design research

In design, we focus on contextual interviews with your customers. The idea is to go deep and understand people — their needs, wants and aspirations. A question that comes up regularly is why can’t we just do focus groups or surveys? How is talking to 10 people statistically relevant?.

In doing user research you focus on something very fundamental in the problem space — you focus on unearthing what to even ask.

Jason Fried writes about his interaction with Clayton Christensen around questions.

Clay says:

“Questions are places in your mind where answers fit. If you haven’t asked the question, the answer has nowhere to go. It hits your mind and bounces right off. You have to ask the question — you have to want to know — in order to open up the space for the answer to fit.”

This is the biggest value of good design. It helps you to unearth questions you never had. It helps you to create spaces in your mind that were not there before. And as you start to work on these questions, you start to have answers you never had possible. In that moment, you have innovation.

Suhit is a Strategy Designer at Business Models Inc. He is focussed on innovation for social change. He combines design, business, social sciences, entrepreneurship with a focus on social innovation and social entrepreneurship. He works with organisations to create value for customers, employees, stakeholders and the society. He calls it “Humanomics”.