Chapter 3 How to understand problems

Chapter 3 How to understand problems

1. problem is an “undesirable situations”

   • Problems are inherently tied to specific groups of people that wish their situation was different.
     • you can’t define a problem without being very explicit about whose problem you’re addressing.
       • To understand a problem answer the question of who are you trying to help and why, and what kind of help do they really need?
         • Therefore, the essence of understanding any problem is communicating with the people.
           • The best you can do is come up with a spectrum of needs to design against, and then decide who you’re going to optimize for.
             • communication with people to understand their problems can be done in 4 ways
               • a. Surveys b. Interviews c. Observations d. Secondary research
                 • Things to avoid in interview : Don’t ask leading questions, Don’t ask loaded questions, Avoid double-negatives
                   • Things to do in interview : Define a focus , Brainstorm set of possible questions, Review the questions, “Pilot” the interview, Prepare an organized list of the questions
                     • Chapter 4 How to define problems
                       • interviews, contextual inquiries, observations, and research data. How to utilize this data?
                         • Do interpretation and synthesis. to understand several aspects of the data you have
                           • Understand the patterns in the way in which people describe their problem? understand what’s causing the problem? What are the various consequences of the problem? Which aspects of the problem seem changeable?
                             • 1. derive goals and values from your data. 2. understand who you're designing for
                               • personas, which are fictional people that you’ve described to capture the different types of people you might design for.
                                 • In addition to personas, you can also define scenarios & use methods such as claims analysis to trace your scenario details back to data
                                   • Once you have defined goals, personas, and scenarios, the final challenge is to try to explain the problem you’re solving to other people.
                                     • take all of the knowledge you have and try to write a simple argument that articulates the problem.
                                       • Arguments are inherently about the causality of a problem and you write them to persuade someone that a problem is real and important. They help model the causality of a problem
                                         • Who is being served, why they are being served, and what one believes is causing the problem, and how it impacts a particular group, is key to focusing design efforts.