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Thinking about design problems and contexts
Designers don’t just randomly design something and hope it sells. They identify problems and work out solutions to them in the form of a product or a system.
Design problems, both big and small are all around us. When thinking about design problems to solve designers often start by looking at the bigger picture of a situation (sometimes called a context). They might for example, observe people in different places and doing different things to identify problems people face and evaluate how they might solve that problem.
Thinking about design problems and contexts can be hard as it often feels like there’s no real answer or direction. See this as a good thing as it makes us think in different and unexpected ways and often leads to better and more innovative ideas.
Identifying the right problem to solve is also important as solving a problem where one doesn’t really exist, or where there are already lots of solutions, means a product will have no real purpose.
When starting to identify a design problem it’s important to avoid just going with the first design problem and then trying to find a quick solution. Let ideas bounce around for a while to see where they lead and look beyond the obvious. Don’t fixate on your first thoughts (called design fixation) and consider all thoughts, including the weird and wacky ones.
#ThinkDo
- Download this FREE set of editable resources with 20 TechDoodle activities to develop your thinking about different users and design contexts.
- The 'Users, Need, Design Contexts & Products' pages include lots of useful starting points for thinking about design problems and solutions.
- Teachers, look at our classroom resource to buy on users, needs and design contexts
Return to the Users, Need, Design Contexts & Products page to see all resources
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