Ask to understand: A list of questions for the curious designer
Uncertainties may arise at any given time. That’s why asking the right questions, will help in not losing focus.
It’s not the first time that I’ve been guilty of not providing enough meaningful rationale for a particular design decision I would have made. What I’ve noticed is that this stems from me not asking enough (or the right) questions.
It’s no secret that the older we grow, the more suppressed the will to question becomes. “Don’t overthink this, it’s not worth the time”, they said. Well, ‘they’ were wrong.
I knew I had to be both more intentional whilst keeping hold of that child-like sense of curiosity. So, to tackle this shortcoming of mine, I thought I’d share a list of questions I’ve curated whilst working on and being exposed to a host of different projects.
General
You can either ask yourself these questions (for introspection) or your team members (for context).
Context
- What is the problem we’re trying to solve?
- Why is it a problem?
- Is it really worth our time?
Stephanie’s ‘Intro to Product Design’ piece actually influenced me in starting to ask these three questions in the early stages of a project. They each make a point of highlighting the importance of properly allocating research efforts so as to get the full picture. In tackling these questions, it’d be helpful if you were to think of as many reasons as you can, where a person would need to solve this particular problem as soon as possible.
User-Centered
- Who is our audience?
- What is their goal, and what is important to them?
- What are their needs?
- What are some assumptions that we have about the user?
- What do they expect?
- Why do those things matter to them?
- Who is the ideal user, and what are some scenarios they would use your product in?
- Are there defining user cases that may affect whether people choose to invest in your product or not?
Hopefully this set should be self-explanatory. We’re designing for other humans. I mean, it should be obvious by now after literally hearing the phrase human-centred design at least 20 times a day, minimum.
Product-Thinking
- How will the product fit into the overall product strategy?
- What is the business goal?
- Will people want or need it? Why?
- Does the product serve a real user problem? Or is it just another cool internet thing you can share?
- How have other people tackled this problem?
- How have previous solutions failed/succeeded?
- Have we worked on something similar before and if so, how did we go about this?
- What’s the best/worst thing that could happen?
- Are we being socially conscious of any cultural, socio-political pressures that may affect how people use our product?
- Are we designing for sustainability? If so, how?
- Are we taking accessibility into consideration? If so, how?
- What gap is missing from the user’s everyday life that this product hopes to occupy, and what will it provide?
- What impact will the product have on psychological level as well as a societal level?
Goal-Oriented
- What is the success criteria?
- Are there any apparent roadblocks that might hinder progress?
- Are there any metrics you should keep in mind?
- What is the experience’s primary objective, and how should it effect someone?
- How can we avoid failure?
When it’s a redesign
I’m generally on the fence when it comes redesigns, especially those of products that have a slew of designers behind them, tirelessly defining and iterating upon the experience. It’s honestly great that designers take it upon themselves redesign something that they thought wasn’t working. Many others just resort to berating rather than creating and really, the best way to complain is to make something. That said, you need to be able to answer some questions before attempting a redesign.
Motive
- Why did you think there was a need for a redesign?
- What problems did you solve with your redesign?
- Who are you designing for?
Specific
- What was your reason to eliminate X and replace it with Y?
- What does your design accomplish that is lacking in the current manifestation of the interface?
- Are there any particular set of rules or patterns that the user would or should intuitively follow?
When performing usability studies
Before
- What are you looking to gain from this usability test?
- What hypothesis are you looking to test?
- What is the ideal time to perform this task?
- What attributes or characteristics should the user have for the test to be effective?
After
- What was their experience like?
- What was unclear?
- What went well?
- How long did it take to do the task that was set? Why?
- In which specific flow of the product are people getting frustrated or confused? Why?
- How are they going about solving it? Or do they quit?
When researching
- What are you looking for?
- What’s the hypothesis you’re looking to prove/disprove? Any research questions that you’re trying to answer?
- How is your study designed to collect the kind of data that you actually need?
- Is there a group of individuals that should take part in the research for more accurate results?
- What does your data set consist of? Is it subjective or objective?
- How will the research be used after insights are gathered?
A few words
Clearly, this is not a list of questions meant to be asked in a single sitting. Some of these questions might not give you all (or any) of the necessary information and insight that you will need to design with, so use them sparingly and only when necessary.
Obviously there’s a million other questions that you could ask. I would say that the only constant is that every project or product will have its own nuances and idiosyncrasies, which you will need to figure out by immersing yourself into whatever problem space you’re working in.
Before you head to the next story, I’d love to hear any feedback regarding this one. You can reach me via email at justinmfarrugia@gmail.com or be a hip millennial and tweet me at @justinmfarrugia
