Unit-II

Problem Identification process in Design Thinking

What Is Empathy Exactly?

In a general sense, empathy is our ability to see the world through other people's eyes, to
see what they see, feel what they feel, and experience things as they do.

Of course, none of us can fully experience things the way someone else does, but we can
attempt to get as close as possible, and we do this by putting aside our own preconceived
ideas and choosing to understand the ideas, thoughts, and needs of others instead.

In Design Thinking, empathy is, as explained in IDEO’s Human-Centered Design Toolkit, a

“deep understanding of the problems and realities of the people you are designing for”.

It involves learning about the difficulties people face, as well as uncovering their latent
needs and desires in order to explain their behaviours. To do so, we need to have an
understanding of the people’s environment, as well as their roles in and interactions with
their environment.

Empathy helps us gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of people's emotional and
physical needs, and the way they see, understand, and interact with the world around
them.

It will also help us to understand how all of this has an impact on their lives generally,
specifically within the contexts being investigated.

Empathise:
 “Empathise” is the first stage of the Design Thinking process. The following stages can be
summarized as: Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.

In the empathise stage, your goal, as a designer, is to gain an empathic understanding of the
people you’re designing for and the problem you are trying to solve.

This process involves observing, engaging, and empathizing with the people you are
designing for in order to understand their experiences and motivations, as well as
immersing yourself in their physical environment in order to have a deeper personal
understanding of the issues, needs and challenges involved.

Empathy is crucial to a human-centered design process such as Design Thinking, and

empathy helps design thinkers to set aside his or her own assumptions about the world in
order to gain insight into their users and their needs.

Depending on your time constraints, you will want to gather a substantial amount of
information at this stage of the Design Thinking process.

In the Empathise stage of a Design Thinking process, you will develop the empathy,
understandings, experiences, insights and observations on which you will use to build the
rest of your design project.

If you have time and money, you should also consider consulting experts in order to find
out more about the people you design for, but you’ll be surprised at how much insight you
and your team can easily gain via practical Empathise methods.

Empathise methods

The following are our favorite Empathise methods:

• Assume a beginner’s mindset
• Ask What-How-Why
• Conduct interviews with empathy
• Build empathy with analogies
• Use photo and video user-based studies
• Use personal photo and video journals
• Engage with extreme users
• Story share-and-capture
• Body storm
• Create journey maps
How to Empathize to Get the Right Insights

You have a range of options, including:

Observing real users: Ask these questions to shift from concrete observations to abstract
motivations:
“What?” – You detail your observations.
“How?” – You analyze how users do things (e.g., with difficulty).
“Why?” – You make educated guesses about the users’ emotions and motivations.

Conducting photo- and/or video-based studies in users’ natural environments or

sessions with the design team or consultants – You record these users while they try to
solve an issue you propose to resolve with your design.

Personal photo/video journals – You ask users to record their own experiences with
approaching a problem. These may capture their pain points more accurately.

Interviewing users – Your team uses brainstorming to first find the right questions to ask
in a generally structured and natural flow. Then, you can directly ask users for their
insights in an intimate setting where they can respond earnestly to open-ended questions.

Engaging with extreme users – You find the extreme cases within your user base to
determine the greatest degrees of users’ needs, problems and problem-solving methods.
You can then see the full scope of problems which typical, non-extreme users might run
into. If you can satisfy an extreme user, you can satisfy any user.

Analogous empathy – Your team finds effective analogies to draw parallels between users’
problems and problems in other fields. This way, you can get insights you’d otherwise
overlook.

Sharing inspiring stories – Your team shares stories about what they have observed so
you draw meaning from these and note fascinating details.

Body storming – You wear equipment (e.g., goggles, gloves) to gain first-hand experience
of your users in their environment.

Empathy maps and customer journey maps – Your team should have at least one of
these as a reference point to appreciate the users’ perspectives.
There are many interrelated qualities and characteristics that combine to develop a more
empathic approach to engaging with others.
Keeping these qualities and traits in mind, and learning to develop them, are key to forming
a deep and genuine understanding of your users.

Empathy is especially important in the first stage of any Design Thinking process.

In the Empathize stage, it’s your goal as a designer to gain an empathic understanding of
the people you’re designing for and the problem you are trying to solve.

This involves empathizing with, engaging and observing the people, your target audience,
you intend to help.

How to be an Empathic Observer

1. Abandon Your Ego

Most of us have a tendency to assert ourselves, which results in an imposition upon others,
as well as having more concern about our own situation rather than the needs and
concerns of others.

However, in order to empathise deeply, we need to tame and put aside our egos. We need
to become aware of the primary goal of empathy in Design Thinking, which is to
understand and experience the feelings of others.

2. Adopt Humility

When we adopt humility, we naturally improve our ability to empathise, because through
humility we elevate the value of others above ourselves.

3. Be a Good Listener

So as to empathise, we need to listen and listen attentively. We need to choose actively to

block out our inner conflicting voices, and allow the other's voice to resonate (re produce).

We need to train ourselves to control our natural tendency to formulate our own opinions
and voice them before the other person has finished talking.

Doing so would enable us to have a deeper kind of listening, which uncovers deeper
meaning and experience.

4. Hone (sharpen) Your Observation skills

In order to develop empathy towards our users, we need to do more than listen.

We need to observe others, and have a close reading of their behaviours, subtle indications,
their non-verbal expressions, body language, and environments.

Only once we are able to experience the full range of sensations of others within context
can we have a deeper and more meaningful empathic experience.

By honing our observation skills, we can fill many of the gaps, leading to a deeper
understanding of someone else's experience.

5. Care

A genuine concern about the state of others, leading to the desire to act and assist, is
required.

This is one of the important drivers that allow us to overcome our own needs and wants
and seek to understand others.

We must build a sense of care, a deep concern and desire to want to help, nurture, and
provide assistance. This requires a level of emotional insight.

6. Be Curious

Being genuinely curious makes engaging in empathy research not only easier but also
extremely rewarding as we learn to understand what motivates people.

By being curious, we are naturally inclined to dig into unexpected areas, uncover new
insights, and explore all aspects of people's lives.

At a glance, these details might seem unimportant, but they will expose the most important
information we need for problem solving.

7. Be Sincere

Nothing kills empathy more than a lack of sincerity. When we approach people with a
superficial agenda, superiority complex, or any mindset that may undermine our sincere
intention to understand their experience deeply, we are placing a barrier between us and
those we seek to understand.
Rather than approaching people with the mindset that they are in need of our help, we
should realize that we stand to benefit more out of deeply understanding them.
After all, the solution exists to serve their needs, and your work will not be complete unless
you properly understand their needs.

8. Learn to Understand Body Language

We should have a keen awareness of how our body language sets the scene for trust and
engagement between ourselves and the people we are observing or interviewing.

On top of that, we need to read and interpret the signals that our users give off via their
body language. This is a skill that comes with practice, and thus practice we must.

If we want to connect with and engage our users on a deeper level, we need to study their
body language, body signals, facial expressions, voice intonations, and the positive and
negative signs that come from these.

Here are some of the little things that you should pay attention to:
• Learn to read the subtle (slight) nuances in communication, change of tone, pauses
and skipping back over points.
• Listen to what is not being said, to what's being avoided or covered up.
• Subtly know when to encourage more expression or to lead the conversation or
story in a beneficial direction.
• Know what to ask and how to ask it and when the person might be ready to be
asked.

How to Gain an Empathic Understanding of People

The most effective way you can gain empathy comes in the form of immersion: direct
experience of the lives, contexts, environments, and activities of the people you would like
to understand better.

On top of immersing yourself in the environment to experience first-hand what it feels like
to be your user, there are also a couple of methods you can engage in so as to gain a deeper
understanding of people’s needs and emotions.

Remember: the key to developing empathy is to go out there and practice with real people.

What-How-Why Method
The What-How-Why method is a tool that you can use while observing people to help you
dive into your observations and derive deeper levels of understanding.

With the What-How-Why method, you start with concrete observations — the what — and
from there move to higher levels of abstraction — asking How — and then finally you
arrive at the Why—i.e., the emotional drivers behind people’s behaviours.

This method is extremely useful for you to analyze images that you might have taken while
observing your users.

You should divide your observations into three sections: What, How and Why.

In What, note down the details of what is happening. What is the person doing? What is
happening in the background? What is the person holding? Describe using adjectives and
try to be as concrete as possible.

In How, describe how the person is doing what he or she is doing. For instance, is the
person putting in a great deal of effort? Is the person frowning or smiling while doing the
task? Does the person use many ad-hoc tools to make the task easier? Try to describe the
emotional impact of performing the task.

Finally, in Why, try to interpret the scene. Based on the What and How observations, guess
the emotional drivers behind the person you are observing.

The person might be frowning while doing a task because she is concerned about hurting
herself in the process --which means safety, is a driver of her behaviours.

Conducting an Interview with Empathy Method

At many points in your Design Thinking project, you will be interviewing your users.
During the initial stages as you build your understanding of users, and after testing
prototypes with them, you are likely to ask them questions so as to probe deeper into their
emotions and behaviors.

To make the most out of your interviews, you should sufficiently prepare your team before
each one.

Make a list of questions you want to ask your users. Then, group the questions into themes
or topics, and try to create a smooth flow between the topics so that your interview would
flow naturally.

Building Empathy with Analogies Method

An analogy is a comparison between two things—for example, a comparison of a heart to a

pump. We communicate in analogies as they allow us to express our ideas or to explain
complex matters in an understandable and motivating way.

Analogies are a great way for us to build empathy towards users and for generating new
ideas around a problem.

Use analogies to gain a fresh way of looking at an environment, and in instances where
direct observation is hard to achieve.
When using analogies, you should start by identifying the aspects of a situation that are
most important, interesting, or problematic.

For instance, if you are working on improving a supermarket experience, some of the key
aspects might be containing and separating different goods in the shopping cart, making a
decision when presented with many options, and handling long waiting lines.

Then, find other experiences that contain some of these aspects — it will help you gain a
better understanding of your users’ problems, and it will also spark new ideas to improve
their xperiences.

How to become a more empathic designer

Anyone looking to build a career in UX design will need to master the art of empathy. There
is plenty of research to suggest that empathy is not a fixed personality trait; according to
the largest ever study into the genetic basis of empathy, only 10% of the variation between
people’s compassion and understanding is down to genes. This indicates that empathy can
be learned and improved.

Before we delve into specific methods used during the empathise phase, let’s consider how
you might train yourself to become a more empathic designer.

Practice empathy in your everyday life

You can become more empathic simply by making empathy a part of your everyday life—
by flexing and training your empathy muscle, if you will.
Make a conscious effort to observe those around you and empathise with how they might
be feeling.

The more you practice empathy in the outside world, the easier it will be to put yourself in
your user’s shoes when it comes to your next design project.

The power of facial expressions

Research has shown that mirroring another person’s facial expressions can help you to feel
what they are feeling.

UCLA researchers found that empathic actions, such as mimicking someone’s facial
expressions, trigger far greater activity in the emotion centers of the brain than when
merely observing these facial expressions.

You might be familiar with the almost reflexive action of wincing when you see someone
stub their toe, for example, when engaging in conversations or observing your users, try
mimicking their facial expressions as a way of building empathy.

Assume a beginner’s mindset (Listen, don’t judge!)

As already mentioned, setting aside your assumptions is absolutely critical when it comes
to building empathy.

As human beings, we all come with our own preconceptions, experiences, and
misconceptions; this is how we make sense of the world around us.

However, these can hinder our ability to build empathy. When listening to and engaging
with people, get into the habit of suspending your own judgments and assumptions.

You can think of it as a mental reset; assume a “blank” mindset, free of any preconceived
ideas and beliefs.

Really listen attentively to what other people are saying, and you’ll uncover much deeper
insights about how they tick as a person.

Pay attention to body language

From the way a person stands and where their arms are positioned, to the tiniest of micro
expressions; there is so much to be deduced from body language alone.
In your quest to become a more empathic designer, learn to study and interpret these
physical signals.

Key empathy-building methods

During the empathize phase of the Design Thinking process, you’ll need to both observe
and engage with your users.

There are plenty of empathy-building techniques you can use to gain a deeper
understanding of how your users tick. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular
empathise methods.

Empathy interviews

One way to build empathy is by conducting empathy interviews. The key to an effective
empathy interview is to structure it as an open conversation; don’t try to steer the session
with a set list of questions.

Remember, the goal is to uncover as much insight as possible—not to confirm or negate a

preconceived notion.

The Stanford d.school provides some excellent tips on interviewing for empathy, such as
constantly asking “why?” (even if you think you already know the answer!), asking non-
binary questions, encouraging storytelling, and paying attention to nonverbal cues.

One of the most important things to bear in mind when conducting an empathy interview is
that you need to be present and attentive.

Don’t be distracted by taking notes; set up a recorder or have someone there to take notes
for you.

Immersion and observation

It is also extremely useful to observe your users in action, be it in their natural environment
or immersed in a certain situation.

Observing your users, either by photographing or videoing them, helps to identify needs,
motivations, or challenges that they’re not aware of—and therefore not able to articulate.
There are several ways of observing your users. One option is to bring them in and observe
them while they interact with the product, or problem, you are trying to design for.

You might video them or record their screen as they navigate a website. Another option is
to ask your users to keep their own photo or video journal over a certain time period, or
while completing certain tasks in their everyday lives.

The advantage of this is that your users aren’t so aware of being watched and may
therefore act more naturally.

Extreme users

In their quest to build empathy and truly understand the problem that their users face,
designers will often turn to extreme users.

As UX designer Jack Strachan explains, extreme users help to reframe the problem and
uncover new insights: “Extreme users’ needs are somewhat amplified. They need/want less
or more of something to solve their problems. They often find workarounds to existing
problems, unlike average users.”

Engaging with extreme users can help you to identify problems and needs that so-called
mainstream users may have trouble voicing.

By building empathy with both the “averages” and the “extremes” of your target user base,
you are much better equipped to come up with innovative solutions. You can learn how to
identify your extreme users here.

Constant curiosity: Ask what, how, and why?

Throughout the empathise phase, you should constantly be considering the what, how, and
why of your users’ behavior.

The what-how-why framework can help you translate your (assumption-free) observations
into more abstract user motivations. Divide your page into three sections and break down
what you’ve observed as follows:

What? Refers to the details of what has happened.

How? Here you will consider how the user has completed these actions. What were their
facial expressions? Were they exerting a lot of effort? Did they seem at ease, frustrated, or
confused?
Why? Now it’s time to make some educated guesses about the user’s motivations and
emotions as they complete these tasks.

The more you reflect on how and why your users might behave in a certain way, the more
you can empathise with (and design for!) them.

Empathy maps

Empathy maps are another great tool not only for getting to know your users, but for
sharing this knowledge across the wider team.

As defined by the Nielsen Norman Group, an empathy map is “a collaborative visualization

used to articulate what we know about a particular type of user. It externalizes knowledge
about users in order to 1) create a shared understanding of user needs, and 2) aid in
decision making.”

Empathy mapping requires you to consider your users in relation to four different
quadrants:

Says: Contains direct quotes based on what the user has said, for example during an
empathy interview.

Thinks: Considers what the user might be thinking, but may not want to explicitly reveal.

Does: Looks at concrete actions the user takes, for example: refreshing a page, clicking a
button, comparing different options before making a purchase.

Feels: Considers what emotions the user is experiencing at certain points. For example:
“Frustrated: Can’t find what they are looking for on the page.”

Empathy maps will also help you to define user personas, which you can learn more about
here.

Nine Criteria of an Inspirational Design Brief

A design brief is a short document, usually 2 to 20 pages in length, that relays issues of “
who, what, when, how, and why” to the design team.
A well-written design brief enables designers to understand their clients and to
communicate with other designers in a team fluently, eventually helping them to develop
concepts.

We define an inspirational design brief as not only a guide to follow but also a mind-set to
help designers leverage constraints in ideation.

Nine design quality criteria (DQC)

A. Strategy

1. Philosophy: History, values, belief, vision, mission, and strategy of a company

2. Structure: Domain, business model, and competitive advantage of a company
3. Innovation: Area and type of innovation of a company

B. Context

4. Social/human: Needs and activities about individual and/or group of consumers

5. Environment: Requirements of and expectations for environmental concerns
6. Viability: Expectations about economic performance

C. Performance

7. Process: Budget and schedule of a project

8. Function: Nature of deliverables including unique selling point
9. Expression: Sensory styling and aesthetics of products

Figure 2.1 The nine criteria of an inspirational design brief.

Example of an Inspirational Design Brief in Product Design

Writing a design brief for an innovative product design project is an art as well as a science.
Successful design brief writers elaborate their projects in detail using the DQC while
keeping their final documents to a manageable length.

Here, we introduce an example of an inspirational design brief for developing an innovative

storage system project submitted to LEGO:

1. Philosophy:

The name LEGO is an abbreviation of the two Danish words, leg godt, meaning “play well”.
The ultimate purpose of LEGO is to inspire and develop children to think creatively, reason
systematically, and release their potential to share their own future —experiencing the
endless human possibility.

The LEGO toys have become a staple in the homes of relative families. The imagination of a
child is what LEGO emphasizes.

2. Structure:

The LEGO Group is owned by the founding family and its ownership is handled by KIRKBI,
the investment company, and the LEGO Foundation.

KIRKBI not only owns 75 percent of the LEGO Group but also owns 38 percent of the Merlin
Entertainments Group who runs the LEGOLAND theme parks.

The LEGO Foundations holds the remaining 25 percent of the Group. LEGO is one of the
largest toy manufacturers in the world.

3. Innovation:

In 2004, LEGO (a) listened to consumers, (b) utilized new technologies, and (c) refocused
its business to successfully save it from a steady decline in sales.

After listening to consumers, LEGO recognized that consumers consistently bought the sets
having a story with a good character and an evil one, suggesting that good-bad conflict
appeals.
LEGO also continuously adjusted to new technologies to cut the development process from
two years to one year. It designed products according to feedback and recognized failure
early in the production cycle, solidifying its integrity.

Finally, it stripped down from a wide variety of businesses including clothing, theme parks,
and video games to a core brick business.

4. Social/human:

Children assemble blocks randomly when they are young. As they grow, their projects
become more complex, until they eventually incorporate stories as well as engineering and
aesthetic components.

People constantly push the boundaries of what is possible with LEGO with others, being
adult LEGO fanatics.

Therefore, kids and their parents are their main markets as LEGO bricks evolve with them.

5. Environment:

LEGO bricks and storages are sold in boxes. We should consider reducing the size of the
box to reduce the consumption of cardboard coming from sustainable forests.

6. Viability:

In order to maximize the return on investment of the steadily growing LEGO, we should
consider material choice, ease of disposal/recycling, safety standards and feasibility.

7. Process:

We should present artworks using a given PowerPoint template with a maximum of 12

slides and 5 MB.

We can submit a video to go along with the presentation: maximum length of 3 minutes;
maximum size of 50 MB; and allowed file types are mp4, avi, flv, mpg, swf, and wmv.

8. Function:

We should explore a different concept that can potentially replace the current Bricks &
more storage boxes while keeping the following requirements.
It needs to convince parents and gift givers of delivering great functionality and permanent
storage in store and at home, suggesting that it survives a child's play life.

It must also be feasible; the project must show how we produce and integrate it into
LEGO's current product line.

9. Expression:

We should clearly communicate the ideas of LEGO such as imagination, creativity, fun, and
learning.

Specific expression languages of the concept must follow; its form is geometric and static,
edges are rounded, and its primary colors are bright.

Example of an Inspirational Design Brief in a Research Project

Nine DQC are versatile and can be applied to a very different type of project, such as when
business decision makers approach a conventional challenge in a more innovative fashion.

Traditionally, they made decisions by considering the analyses and suggestions made by
internal researchers and external economists. However, these inputs often stem from a
worldview based on outdated assumptions and fail to nudge decision makers to see an
issue in a fresh perspective.

Here, we introduced an example of inspirational design brief for proposing a research

project submitted to corporate leaders. It aims to help them to reflect on the progress to
date, the challenges ahead, and the impact of the journey toward a sustainable economy.

1. Philosophy:

The underlying assumption of business is that growth is good. However, in the new market
where the cost for food and energy increases, demographics change, and populations grow,
the assumption that growth is good must be challenged.

In order to explore new business models, new legal frameworks, and new economic
systems that prosper in the contemporary market, the question we ask is, “How can we
shift the current paradigm of corporate thought leadership into one that values innovative
thinking for a sustainable future?”
2. Structure:

The proposed project will consist of an autonomous team that makes decisions with the
support of an expert advisory group.

The outputs of the project will include an open research and thought leadership process, a
collaborative content piece that looks at sustainable business practices, and a diverse
community of co-authors.

3. Innovation:

The proposed project will test open innovation techniques, such as crowd sourcing and
crowd funding, in the context of corporate thought leadership research and development.

The purpose of the project is to challenge and improve the current research paradigm of
corporate thought leadership such that it invites more diverse thinking and problem-
solving approaches.

4. Social/human:

The proposed project aims to use social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter
as open research platforms from which we draw questions, ideas, and insights about
sustainable business.

We will tap into ongoing conversations, forums, and discussion boards from diverse
communities of interest. The communities include design, science, technology, agriculture,
health, education, and transportation.

5. Environment:

Business leaders and scholars tackle the world's most pressing issues such as climate,
poverty, inequality, and population using the existing forums such as United Nations Global
Compact, World Economic Forum, and World Council for Sustainable Business.
Sustainability needs to be more highlighted.

6. Viability:

The proposed project will be independently funded through corporate foundations,

government organizations, and academic institutions.
7. Process:

We will establish best practices by conducting consulting projects with in-house and
external teams, while soliciting ideas using open research platforms.

We aim to not just provide solutions, but also to explore the development of dynamic
capabilities and address challenges more deeply.

8. Function:

The proposed project will provide an open research framework that will help to identify
underlying assumptions and offer a new research approach for corporate thought
leadership.

It will convene diverse communities of interest, thereby acting as a catalyst for connection,
collaboration, and innovation.

9. Expression:

All project communications, internal as well as external, will reflect the values and
intentions of the project.

The values of integrity, community, and openness will be honored throughout the process,
which will be reflected in the final deliverable.

Personas: Powerful Tool for Designers

Personas provide designers with a user-centric reference tool that depicts an ideal user.
This tool allows designers to maintain focus on the ideal user as they explore and develop
solutions.

Personas are a representation of ideal or prototypical end users, based on behaviors and
Motivations of real people. Personas represent clusters of users from research.

Personas allow designers to relate to and empathize with users, and encourage them to
view product problems from a user's perspective.

Personas are created at the beginning of the design process. As representations of users,
personas define both the target user and the problem for a design team.
The Importance of Personas

Personas during Design

Personas form the basis of problem definition for a designer; they define users and set
parameters for design solutions, keeping designers from falling into a common design
pitfall: designing for one.

Consciously or not, designers often infer and assume about users based on work
experience and industry knowledge.

Consequently, personas can be useful to avoid self-referencing, frame design problems

from a user's perspective, and focus designers.

Design teams often use brainstorming and storyboarding as tools for generating and
exploring ideas.

Personas during Development

During development, personas get an engineering team up to speed quickly. A clearly

defined persona makes it easier for designers and engineers to achieve a common
understanding about a user and the scope of a solution.

It is critical that engineers understand the target persona so they can make the right
decisions and trade-offs. For a flexible, iterative process, it is impossible and inadvisable to
document every detail during design.

To compensate, personas provide contextual understanding to an engineering team so it

can interpret design documents.

Personas as a Communication Tool

Personas are useful when it comes to communicating with other business functions such as
marketing, management, and sales.

Personas provide a clear definition of a target market and assist a marketing team with
aligning a product from inception through promotion.

Buyer personas provide sales and marketing a method of collaborating with the design
team. Pitching a product concept to executive managers in a corporation or potential
investors (e.g., in a startup company) involves communicating abstract, contextual
information.

Personas help decision makers understand a problem from a user’s perspective and
provide a context for evaluating the product concept.
Therefore, personas are useful for obtaining corporate support or financial investment for
a start-up.

Creating Personas

When creating personas, the first step is to identify and select a group of users to research.
Choosing users who belong to an appropriate market segment is key to yielding useful
insights, often requiring a product manager to possess intimate knowledge of a market and
various market segments in the industry.

In practice, product managers often rely on secondary research and internal records or
conduct a small-scale study to define various personas.

The next step is to collect data. Ideally, personas are created by clustering or consolidating
real-life people and experiences from primary research that includes ethnographic studies
and user interviews.

Ethnographic research is the deep, qualitative study of users in the context of their
environment when using a product. There are various methods for collecting data during
an ethnographic study.

We often conduct user interviews, conduct observational studies, and (if possible) use
video recordings of users using a product and photos of their environment. Interviews
uncover user problems and their underlying causes.

Interviews help designers understand user motivation and a user's state of mind while
using a product. However, user responses alone are unreliable since users are often
unaware of their own needs. Mixed methods may explore user needs more fully.

Observational studies and video recordings capture users performing tasks, techniques
that are effective when conducting efficiency studies. Using these methods, ethnographic
research is a reliable source for uncovering behavioral responses and user problems.

When capturing a user with video, audio, or photos, researchers must always ask
permission from the user before recording and guard the user's privacy.

The third step is consolidating data from the studies and grouping insights based on
common user problems. Often, this is done with a broader design team so all designers
have the opportunity to learn directly from the researchers.

This also offers the advantage of building personas with the designers so they can
internalize user models. Researchers typically look for patterns in responses and organize
them into clusters, which are then grouped based on common user problems.
Researchers sometimes find that users from multiple market segments share similar
problems. Finally, the team examines the notes and merges various clusters to create a
series of personas.

The team looks for a dominant profile or common demographics within the cluster. The
profile becomes the basis for a persona as long as it does not focus on a single, real person.

The team also looks for attributes of its subjects that are impacted by the user problems,
and build these same attributes into the persona.

For example, a busy, active lifestyle might be an important attribute in the cluster of test
subjects. The persona built from this cluster must have this same trait.

Illustrative Application of Personas

This example is based on a software product, though application of personas is the same
for other types of products. Although it is common for a design team to work with multiple
personas, we demonstrate only two—one user and one anti-persona—for the purpose of
expediency.

Product Manager at ACME

The example begins with Anne, an experienced product manager at ACME Tech, a
technology company that makes a variety of productivity software for consumers across
devices: personal computers, smartphones, and tablets.

ACME's business model is to provide products free for users to download, and include
advertising from third parties in the products. ACME receives the bulk of its revenue from
advertising. Anne works on the company's mobile-apps team, which makes apps for
smartphones and tablets.

According to ACME's marketing team, there is an opportunity in the marketplace for a

better-productivity mobile app. The marketing team sends her an analyst's report that
suggests all mobile productivity apps in the market are disappointing and used rarely.

Anne is excited and wants to seize this opportunity to launch a new app for smartphone
users, with the goal of adding new customers and expanding ACME's customer base.

Stage 1: Creating personas.

With her goals firmly in her mind, Anne turns to a colleague on the user research team, and
commissions an ethnographic study. Her colleague recruits eight highly productive users in
Texas for the study. The researcher recommends that Anne and any interested members of
the design team help her with the interviews.
Anne thinks this is a great idea and convinces a few designers and engineers to participate
as interviewers, observing in pairs during the series of ethnographic studies.

After completing the studies, Anne and her cross-functional team review the data under the
guidance of the researcher. After an initial review of results, Anne organizes a working
session to cluster information from the interviews and derive personas.

All the designers and engineers who participated in the interviews attend Anne's working
session. Two dominant profiles emerge: a tech-savvy, self-employed persona and a tech-
aware, corporate persona.

From the original market-segmentation data, many of the segmentation characteristics

were deemed not useful while clustering subjects based on user problems.

The dominant attributes that mattered were willingness to adopt new technology and
corporate versus non corporate work background. Anne found some indication that users
who looked for new technology were most dissatisfied with existing productivity solutions.

Aware that there were only eight interviews conducted during the study, Anne
commissions a survey to validate results. The survey results validate the initial findings. At
this point, Anne is ready to build personas. Mindful of how personas can be misused, she
decides to name her personas Wilma (the tech-savvy, self-employed) and Fred (the tech-
aware, corporate).

Anne's persona #1, Fred, tech-aware, corporate.

Name: Fred Dallas

Age: 42

Marital Status: Married

Lives: Dallas, TX

Occupation: Fred is a midlevel manager at a business services company. He manages a

team of about 30 people and does some sales and brings in customers. He specializes in the
quarry industry, so his team and customers are spread across the United States. Dallas
airport is very convenient for Fred since he flies frequently to visit his team and customers
across the country.

Family Life: Fred grew up and went to college in Dallas. He and his family live in Plano,
Texas, an affluent Dallas suburb.

Technology: Fred grew up with technology, but he focuses on the same products he uses
daily, many of which are work related. Fred lives on e-mail; he uses it to keep up with his
team and customers. He gets the standard smartphone issued by his company's
information technology (IT) department and relies on IT to ensure that his e-mail, calendar,
and productivity apps work.

Problems: Fred spends half his time on the road, so when he is in town, he spends as much
time out of his office as possible, working from home and spending time with family. His
wife complains that he spends too much time glued to his smartphone. Fred wishes he
could find a better way to stay on top of all of the to do items from work and family.

Anne's persona #2, Wilma, tech-savvy, self-employed.

Name: Wilma Houston

Age: 33

Marital Status: Married

Lives: Houston, TX

Occupation: Wilma works as an independent wedding planner, the perfect job for her
because she is highly social, and has a passion for photography.

Family Life: Wilma grew up on the East Coast, and after going to college in Texas, she
settled in Houston. Wilma is married and has a two-year-old baby girl. Wilma's husband is
an engineer in the energy industry.

Technology: Wilma uses social media as a primary method of finding clients, tracking
friends, and blogging about her business and photography. She uses the latest smartphone
because she finds it easy to use and has all of her data and contacts at her fingers. Since she
owns her own business, Wilma uses all of the latest cloud services for e-mail, contacts,
scheduling, and social media.

Problems: Wilma prides herself on being organized. She is able to juggle her busy home life
and her business, but she is a victim of her own success; it is getting harder to stay on top of
all her vendors, subcontractors, clients, and schedules.

Stage 2: Method of inquiry based on personas.

Anne wants to frame the user problem for the designers so she uses the personas to
represent the target users. Anne organizes a series of brainstorming sessions with the
cross-functional design team to discover ideas for exploration.

Although the design team is familiar with user research, Anne presents her personas and
tapes a printout of each to a whiteboard in the conference room used for the brainstorming
session.
During the session, all participants can be reminded of the intended users of their ideation
brainstorm. Anne uses the personas to set the context and ensure that participants focus on
generating ideas that will benefit the target user.

Personas play a strong role during the brainstorm by getting designers in the mind-set of
thinking of personas before generating ideas. This keeps brainstorming focused on users.

Stage 3: Communicating with engineering.

Although it is early during the design, Anne and the lead designer review results of the
brainstorming session with the lead engineer on her cross-functional team to get his
technical feedback.

They use the personas to summarize their research and frame ideas generated from the
brainstorming session.

An issue the lead engineer raises is that corporate users encounter integration issues with
corporate security and e-mail. He estimates that solving these issues alone will take up the
majority of engineering resources.

Stage 4: Prioritizing personas.

Based on the technical feedback, Anne reassesses the personas and decides that Wilma is
more important; Fred is demoted to an anti-user persona but is not ignored.

Anne knows from the survey data that if she excludes corporate users, she will be leaving
out a large pool of potential customers.

She plans to go to market focused on the Wilma persona and incorporates the needs of the
Fred persona in subsequent versions of the product.

Stage 5. Concept storyboarding.

Based on prioritization of the Wilma persona, Anne and her lead designer return to the
design team and reset the team's focus. They review brainstorming ideas, and three stand
out as being interesting for Wilma.

To understand each product concept better so the team can decide, each concept is
storyboarded. Using Wilma as the protagonist, Anne and her design team sketch the three
concepts with a storyboard for each.

The storyboards describe how Wilma will use and benefit from the concept. After each
concept is storyboarded, they evaluate all concepts together, choosing the reminder action
as the focus for their app.
Stage 6: Interpret and communicate design proposals to stakeholders.

Anne uses the personas to communicate and pitch the design team's concept to ACME
Tech's product committee for approval. During the presentation, there was insufficient
time to delve into the details with the committee on the ethnographic user research.

Anne uses the personas to get the committee to empathize with the target personas. Anne
takes the committee through the problem scenarios using the personas.

She uses Wilma as the voice when describing how dissatisfied users are with existing
productivity apps.

Anne's intent is to get the committee to view potential opportunities and challenges from
the target user's perspective. Her presentation goes well, and the committee approves the
project.

Stage 7: Working with engineering.

With the approval to build the app, Anne is able to add software engineers to her cross-
functional team. As part of the induction meeting for the new engineers, Anne introduces
them to the basic ethnographic user research that she and the cross-functional team used.

Anne then introduces her two personas and gets the engineers to understand Wilma as the
user persona and Fred as the anti-persona.

She gives every member of the cross-functional team a printed profile of Wilma to post at
their desk so they are reminded that they are creating an app for a specific type of user—
Wilma.

What is the define stage and why is it necessary?

As the second step in the Design Thinking process, the define stage is dedicated to defining
the problem: what user problem will you be trying to solve? In other words, what is your
design challenge?

The define stage is preceded by the empathize phase, where you’ll have learned as much
about your users as possible, conducting interviews and using a variety of immersion and
observation techniques.

Once you have a good idea of who your users are and, most importantly, their wants, needs,
and pain-points, you’re ready to turn this empathy into an actionable problem statement.
The relationship between the empathize and define stages can best be described in terms
of analysis and synthesis.

In the empathize phase, we use analysis to break down everything we observe and discover
about our users into smaller, more manageable components—dividing their actions and
behavior into “what”, “why” and “how” categories.

In the define stage, we piece these components back together, synthesizing our findings to
create a detailed overall picture.

Why is the define stage so important?

The define stage ensures you fully understand the goal of your design project. It helps you
to articulate your design problem, and provides a clear-cut objective to work towards.

A meaningful, actionable problem statement will steer you in the right direction, helping
you to kick-start the ideation process (see Stage Three of the Design Thinking process) and
work your way towards a solution.

Without a well-defined problem statement, it’s hard to know what you’re aiming for. Your
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 you are trying to achieve.

With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at problem statements and how you can go about
defining them.

What is a problem statement?

A problem statement identifies the gap between the current state (i.e. the problem) and the
desired state (i.e. the goal) of a process or product. Within the design context, you can think
of the user problem as an unmet need. By designing a solution that meets this need, you can
satisfy the user and ensure a pleasant user experience.

A problem statement, or point of view (POV) statement, frames this problem (or need) in a
way that is actionable for designers. It provides a clear description of the issue that the
designer seeks to address, keeping the focus on the user at all times.

Problem or POV statements can take various formats, but the end goal is always the same:
to guide the design team towards a feasible solution. Let’s take a look at some of the ways
you might frame your design problem:
 • From the user’s perspective: “I am a young working professional trying to eat
healthily, but I’m struggling because I work long hours and don’t always have time
to go grocery shopping and prepare my meals. This makes me feel frustrated and
bad about myself.”

• From a user research perspective: “Busy working professionals need an easy,

time-efficient way to eat healthily because they often work long hours and don’t
have time to shop and meal preparation.”

• Based on the four W’s—who, what, where, and why: “Our young working
professional struggles to eat healthily during the week because she is working long
hours. Our solution should deliver a quick and easy way for her to procure
ingredients and prepare healthy meals that she can take to work.”

As you can see, each of these statements addresses the same issue—just in a slightly
different way. As long as you focus on the user, what they need and why, it’s up to you how
you choose to present and frame your design problem.

We’ll look at how to form your problem statement a little later on. Before we do, let’s
consider some problem statement “do”s and “don’t”s.

What makes a good problem statement?

A good problem statement is human-centered and user-focused. Based on the insights you
gathered in the empathize phase, it focuses on the users and their needs—not on product
specifications or business outcomes. Here are some points that will help you create a
meaningful problem statement:

Focus on the user: The user and their needs should be front and center of your problem
statement. Avoid statements that start with “we need to” or “the product should”, instead
concentrating on the user’s perspective: “Young working professionals need”, as in the
examples.

Keep it broad: A good problem statement leaves room for innovation and creative
freedom. It’s important to keep it broad enough to invite a range of different ideas; avoid
any references to specific solutions or technical requirements.
Make it manageable: At the same time, your problem statement should guide you and
provide direction. If it’s too broad in terms of the user’s needs and goals, you’ll struggle to
hone in on a suitable solution.

So, don’t try to address too many user needs in one problem statement; prioritize and
frame your problem accordingly.

Bearing these things in mind, let’s explore some useful methods for creating a meaningful
problem statement.

How to write a meaningful problem statement

Writing a meaningful problem statement can be extremely challenging. How do you

condense all the complexities of the user’s conscious and unconscious desires into one
simple, actionable statement? Fortunately, there are some tried-and-tested methods that
will help you do just that.

Space saturation and group

One of the first steps in defining a problem statement is to organize your findings from the
empathize phase. Space saturation and group is a popular method used by design
thinkers to collect and visually present all observations made in the empathize phase in
one space.

As the name suggests, you will literally “saturate” a wall or whiteboard with Post-It notes
and images, resulting in a collage of artifacts from your user research.

As the Stanford d. school explains: “You space saturate to help you unpack thoughts and
experiences into tangible and visual pieces of information that you surround yourself with
to inform and inspire the design team. You group these findings to explore what themes
and patterns emerge, and strive to move toward identifying meaningful needs of people
and insights that will inform your design solutions.”

This method should involve anyone who took part in the empathize stage of the design
project, and should take no longer than 20-30 minutes.

The four W’s

Asking the right questions will help you put your finger on the right problem statement.
With all your findings from the empathize phase in one place, ask yourself the four
Ws: Who, what, where, and why?
 • Who is experiencing the problem? In other words, who is your target user; who
will be the focus of your problem statement?
• What is the problem? 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?
• Where does the problem present itself? In what space (physical or digital),
situation or context is the user when they face this problem? Are there any other
people involved?
• Why does it matter? 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.

The five whys

Another question-based strategy, the five whys technique can help you delve deeper into
the problem and drill down to the root cause. Once you’ve identified the root cause, you
have something that you can act upon; somewhere specific to focus your problem-solving
efforts.

Let’s take our previous example of the young working professional who wants to eat
healthily, but finds it difficult to do so. Here’s how you might use the five whys to break the
problem down and get to the root cause:

1. Why is she not eating healthily? → She orders takeaway every day.
2. Why does she order takeaway every day? → Her fridge and cupboards are empty.
3. Why are the fridge and cupboards empty? → She hasn’t been grocery shopping in
over a week.
4. Why hasn’t she been grocery shopping? → She doesn’t have time to go to the
supermarket.
5. Why doesn’t she have time? → She works long hours and is exhausted.

The root cause here is a lack of time, so your solution might focus on efficiency and
convenience. Your final problem statement might look something like this: “Young working
professionals need a quick, convenient solution to eating healthily.”
What comes after the define phase?

By the end of the define phase, you’ll have turned your findings from the empathize stage
into a meaningful, actionable problem statement. With your problem statement to hand,
you’ll be ready to move on to the ideation phase, where you’ll turn your problem statement
into “how might we” questions and generate as many potential solutions as possible.

As you move through the Design Thinking process, you’ll constantly refer back to your
problem statement to make sure you’re moving in the right direction.

A well-thought-out problem statement will keep you on track, help you communicate your
objectives to key stakeholders, and ultimately lead you to that all-important user solution.

What are Customer Journey Maps?

Customer journey maps are used to map the relationship between a customer and an
organization over time and across all channels on which they interact with the business.

Design teams use customer journey maps to see how customer experiences meet
customers’ expectations and find areas where they need to improve designs.

“Data often fails to communicate the frustrations and experiences of customers. A story can
do that, and one of the best storytelling tools in business is the customer journey map.”

— Paul Boag, UX designer, service design consultant & digital transformation expert

Customer Journey Maps – Tell Customer Stories

Customer journey maps are research-based tools which design teams use to reveal typical
customer experiences over time and visualize the many dimensions and factors involved.

These enable brands to learn more about target users. Team members examine tasks and
questions (e.g., what-ifs) regarding how a design meets or fails to meet customers’ needs
over time when they encounter a product or service.

Therefore, these maps should be detail-rich timelines that show the most important sub-
tasks and events. Over this timeline framework, you add insights of what customers think
and feel when proceeding along the timeline.

The map should consist of:

A timescale – a defined journey period (e.g., 1 week) including selected areas from
awareness to conversion and beyond.
Scenarios – the context and sequence of events in which a user/customer must achieve a
goal (e.g., a user wants to buy a ticket on the phone), from first actions (recognition of a
problem) to last actions (e.g., subscription renewal).

Touch points – what customers do while interacting and how they do it.

Channels – where they perform actions (e.g., Facebook).

Thoughts and feelings -what the customer thinks and feels at each touch point.

The goal of a customer journey map is to gain an understanding of how the customer
experience develops over time and show that in a deliverable which everyone in the
organization can appreciate.
It allows you to discover possible problems and improve the design so it’s more likely to
exceed customers’ expectations at all touch points.

How to Make Customer Journey Maps for Exceptional Experiences

To create a customer journey map, you can follow these steps:

Define your Map’s Business Goal – Clarify who will use your map and what user
experience it will address.

Conduct Research – Use customer research to determine customer experiences at all

touch points. Get analytical/statistical data and evidence through, e.g., customer interviews,
surveys, social media listening and competitive intelligence.

Review Touch points and Channels – List customer touch points (e.g., pay a bill) and
channels (e.g., online). Look for additional touch points or channels to include.

Make an empathy map – Pinpoint what the customer does, thinks, feels, says, hears, etc. in
a given situation. Then, determine his/her needs and how he/she feels throughout the
experience. Focus on barriers and sources of annoyance.

Sketch the Journey – Piece together everything (touch points, timescale, empathy map
output, new ideas, etc.) however you like (e.g., a map).

You want to show a customer’s course of motion through touch points and channels across
the timescale, including his/her feelings at every touch point.

Iterate and Refine – Revise and transform your sketch into the best-looking version of the
ideal customer journey.

Share with Stakeholders – Ensure all stakeholders have your map, understand it and
appreciate how its use will bring beneficial changes to customers and across the
organization.

Once the map is ready, you should measure the enhanced journey’s results. For instance,
check key performance indicators (KPIs). The more touch points there are, the more
complex the map will be.
In any case, your entire organization should soon notice its value as a revisable, “living”
document because members from all sections will have a common reference point for a
wider, sharper customer focus.

Our Customer Journey Map template features 3 zones (top – persona and
scenario; middle – thoughts, actions and feelings; bottom – insights and progress
barriers).

Define and Frame Your Design Challenge by Creating Your Point Of View
and Ask “How Might We”

Defining your design challenge is probably one of the most important steps in the Design
Thinking process, as it sets the tone and guides all of the activities that follow.

In the Define mode, you should end up creating an actionable problem statement which is
commonly known as the Point of View (POV) in Design Thinking.

You should always base your Point Of View on a deeper understanding of your specific
users, their needs and your most essential insights about them.

In the Design Thinking process, you will gain those insights from your research and
fieldwork in the Empathize mode.
Your POV should never contain any specific solution, nor should it contain any indication as
to how to fulfill your users’ needs in the service, experience, or product you’re designing.

Instead, your POV should provide a wide enough scope for you and your team to start
thinking about solutions which go beyond status.

Here, you’ll also learn to frame and open up your Point Of View, which is the axis that
Design Thinking revolves around – a challenge well-framed is half solved.

Your point of view should be a guiding statement that focuses on specific users, and
insights and needs that you uncovered during the empathize mode.

More than simply defining the problem to work on, your point of view is your unique
design vision that you crafted based on your discoveries during your empathy work.

Understanding the meaningful challenge to address and the insights that you can leverage
in your design work is fundamental to creating a successful solution.

Your POV is Your Guide

Your Point of View (POV) defines the RIGHT challenge to address in the following mode in
the Design Thinking process, which is the Ideation mode.

A good POV will allow you to ideate and solve your design challenge in a goal-oriented
manner in which you keep a focus on your users, their needs and your insights about them.

You should construct a narrowly-focused problem statement or POV as this will generate a
greater quantity and higher quality solutions when you and your team start generating
ideas during later Brainstorm, Brain writing, SCAMPER and other ideation sessions.

In the ideation process, POV will be your guiding statement that focuses on insights and
needs of a particular user, or composite character.

It’s easy to get lost in the ideations sessions if you don’t have a meaningful and actionable
problem statement to help keep your focus on the core essence of your research results
from your previous work.

A great POV keeps you on track. It helps you design for your users and their needs. If you
neglect to define your POV, you may end up getting lost in the ideation processes and in
your prototyping process.
It’s all too easy to end up focusing on you and your company’s own needs, trying to fulfill
your and your company’s own dreams, not to mention the risk of getting lost in creating
amazing buttons in the beautiful colors.

How do you define your Point Of View?

Step 1

Define the type of person you are designing for – your user.

For example, you could define the user by developing one or more personas, by
using affinity diagrams, empathy maps and other methods, which help you to understand
and crystallize your research results – observations, interviews, fieldwork, etc.

Select the most essential needs, which are the most important to fulfill. Again, extract and
synthesize the needs you’ve found in your observations, research, fieldwork, and
interviews. Remember that needs should be verbs.

Work to express the insights developed through the synthesis of your gathered
information. The insight should typically not be a reason for the need, but rather a
synthesized statement that you can leverage in your designing solution.

Step 2

Write your definitions into a Point Of View template like this one:
Step 3 – POV Madlib

You can articulate a POV by combining these three elements – user, need, and insight – as
an actionable problem statement that will drive the rest of your design work.

It’s surprisingly easy when you insert your findings in the POV Madlib below. You can
articulate your POV by inserting your information about your user, the needs and your
insights in the following sentence:

[User . . . (descriptive)] needs [Need . . . (verb)] because [Insight . . . (compelling)]

Condense your Point Of View by using this POV Madlib.

Example: An adult person who lives in the city… needs access to a shared car 1-4 times for
10-60 minutes per week … because he would rather share a car with more people as this is
cheaper, more environmentally friendly, however it should still be easy for more people to
share.
Here you see one of Google’s driverless cars – a driverless electric car could be a part of the
solution to this design challenge. However, at this stage of the design process, we’re not
ready to look for solutions just yet.

Step 4 – Make Sure That Your Point Of View is One That:

1. Provides a narrow focus.

2. Frames the problem as a problem statement.
3. Inspires your team.
4. Guides your innovation efforts.
5. Informs criteria for evaluating competing ideas.
6. Is captures people’s attention.
7. Is valid, insightful, actionable, unique, narrow, meaningful, and exciting.

You’re now well-equipped to create a POV and it’s time to understand how to
start using your POV which crystallizes all of your previous work in the Empathize mode.

“How Might We” Questions Frame and Open Up Your Design Challenge

You start using your POV by reframing the POV into a question: Instead of saying, we need
to design X or Y, Design Thinking explores new ideas and solutions to a specific design
challenge. It’s time to start using the Design Thinking Method where you ask, “How Might
We…?”
When you’ve defined your design challenge in a POV, you can start opening up for ideas to
solve your design challenge. You can start using your POV by asking a specific question
starting with, “How-Might-We?” or “in-what-ways-might-we?”.

For example: How might we… design a driverless car, which is environmentally friendly,
cheap and easy for more people to share?

How Might We (HMW) questions are the best way to open up Brainstorm and other
Ideation sessions. HMW opens up to Ideation sessions where you explore ideas that can
help you to solve your design challenge.

By framing your challenge as a How Might We question, you’ll prepare yourself for an
innovative solution in the third Design Thinking phase, the Ideation phase.

The How Might We method is constructed in such a way that it opens the field for new
ideas, admits that we do not currently know the answer, and encourages a collaborative
approach to solving it.

For example, if our POV is:

“Teenage girls need… to eat nutritious food… in order to thrive and grow in a healthy way. “

The HMW question may go as follows:

1. How Might We make healthy eating appealing to young females?

2. How Might We inspire teenage girls towards healthier eating options?
3. How Might We make healthy eating something, which teenage girls aspire towards?
4. How Might We make nutritious food more affordable?
Your HMW questions will ensure that your upcoming creative ideation and design activities
are informed with one or more HMW questions, which spark your imagination and aligns
well with the core insights and user needs that you’ve uncovered.

We use the How Might We format because it suggests that a solution is possible and
because they offer you the chance to answer them in a variety of ways. A properly framed
How Might We doesn’t suggest a particular solution, but gives you the perfect frame for
innovative thinking.

How Might We?

The How Might We question purposely maintains a level of ambiguity, and opens up the
exploration space to a range of possibilities.

"How" suggests that we do not yet have the answer. “How” helps us set aside prescriptive
briefs. “How” helps us explore a variety of endeavors instead of merely executing on what
we “think” the solution should be.

"Might" emphasizes that our responses may only be possible solutions, not
the only solution. “Might” also allows for exploration of multiple possible solutions, not
settling for the first that comes to mind.

"We" immediately brings in the element of a collaborative effort. “We” suggests that the
idea for the solution lies in our collective teamwork.

Without a statement of a clear vision or goal, “How Might We” is obviously meaningless.
The words require a well-framed objective, a POV, which is neither too narrow so as to
make it overly restrictive, nor too broad so as to leave you wandering forever in infinite
possibilities.

An Inspiring HMW example

David and Tom Kelley's book Creative Confidence has the story of the Embrace Warmer, a
design challenge undertaken by Stanford Graduate Students aimed at solving the problem
of neonatal hypothermia, which costs the lives of thousands of infants in developing
countries every year.

Faced with the situation where hospital incubators were too expensive as well as physically
inaccessible to villagers who lived in rural settings, a team of students engaged in some
Empathy research, which led them to formulate the HMW statement:
"How Might We creates a baby warming device that helps parents in remote villages give
their dying infants a chance to survive?"

This HMW question inspired the design of the Embrace Warmer sleeping bag device, which
provides the warmth premature babies in rural villages need, and which they are able to
access at a fraction of the cost of traditional hospital incubators.

Whilst a traditional approach may have resulted in technological attempts to reduce the
cost of the incubator, empathic research revealed that one of the core issues was the
inability or unwillingness of mothers to leave their villages or leave their babies at
hospitals for extended periods. This resulted in the reframing of an incubator to a warming
device.

Expand on Your How Might We Questions

Marty Neumeier's Second Rule of Genius is all about framing and opening up your Point Of
View by helping us dream of wishing for what we want. To start wishing, ask yourself the
kinds of questions that begin with:

1. How might we...? (This is the commonly structured framing phrase used to express
the essence of the challenge at hand.)
2. In What Ways Might We…. (Expand on HMW to add the possibility of multiple
ways.)
3. What's stopping us from...?
4. In what ways could we...?
5. What would happen if...?

From there, you can ask follow-up questions such as:

 1. Why would we...?
2. What has changed to allow us to...?
3. Who would need to...?
4. When should we...?

Best Practice Guide to Asking How Might We

Begin with your Point of View (POV) or problem statement. Start by rephrasing and
framing your Point Of View as several questions by adding “How might we” at the
beginning.

Break that larger POV challenge up into smaller actionable and meaningful questions. Five
to ten How Might We questions for one POV is a good starting point.

It is often helpful to brainstorm the HMW questions before the solutions brainstorm. Look
at your How Might We questions and ask yourself if they allow for a variety of solutions. If
they don’t, broaden them.

Your How Might We questions should generate a number of possible answers and will
become a launch pad for your Ideation Sessions, such as Brainstorms.

If your How Might We questions are too broad, narrow them down. You should aim for a
narrow enough frame to let you know where to start your Brainstorm, but at the same time
you should also aim for enough breadth to give you room to explore wild ideas.
A Good POV will Make Your Problem Statement Human-Centered

Creating your POV will help you to define the problem as a problem statement in a human-
centered manner.

A human-centered problem statement is important in a Design Thinking project because it

guides you and your team, and focuses on the uncovered specific needs.

It also creates a sense of possibility and optimism in that it encourages team members to
generate ideas during the Ideation stage, the third and next stage in the Design Thinking
process. A good problem statement should thus have the following traits.

It should be:

Human-centered:

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

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

Broad enough for creative freedom:

This means the problem statement should not focus too narrowly on a specific method
regarding the implementation of the solution.

Neither should the problem statement list technical requirements, as these would
unnecessarily restrict the team and prevents them from exploring areas that might bring
unexpected value and insight to the project.

Narrow enough to make it manageable:

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