Problems are at the heart of any feature development, yet are usually defined after the fact. This workshop walks through how to define problems so you can find the right solutions.

1. Workshop: Problem Definition
Defining the Warehouse, Shelf, and Box
cc: rpongsaj - https://www.flickr.com/photos/15131913@N00

2. About Me
• Sr. Director Interaction Design
and Research, Active Network
• PhD in Information Science
• Close to 25 years in enterprise
software, 15 in UX
• Authored Agile UX Storytelling
cc: Fefa Guerra - https://www.flickr.com/photos/73573770@N04

3. About Active Network
• 1,500+ employees (part of Global
Payments with 10,000+ employees)
• 20+ products spanning consumer to
back office software
• Millions of users daily
• 12 interaction designers and
researchers (we’re hiring!)
cc: Fefa Guerra - https://www.flickr.com/photos/73573770@N04

4. Solutions are FUN!
cc: djwtwo - https://www.flickr.com/photos/40761412@N00

5. Why Problem Definition?
cc: Alexey Kljatov (ChaoticMind75) - https://www.flickr.com/photos/53601471@N08

6. To think outside the box, first you
have to understand and define "the
box"
cc: netzanette - https://www.flickr.com/photos/67212136@N00

7. Problem Definition
1. Understand and define the
persona, journeys, and workflows.
2. Understand and define the
desired actions, results, and
details.
3. Define the box.
cc: thekellyscope - https://www.flickr.com/photos/38799907@N07

8. Who Has a Problem?
cc: katerha - https://www.flickr.com/photos/8489692@N03

9. Where to Look
• Market segments
• Current users
• Current customers
• Employees/Bosses of users
cc: katieb50 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/10233916@N03

10. What is their Journey?
cc: marfis75 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/45409431@N00

11. Where to Look
• Support tickets
• Reviews
• Observations
• Adjacencies
• Feature requests (caveat)
• Training videos
• Industry publications
cc: katieb50 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/10233916@N03

12. A Word about Biases
cc: Wi2_Photography - https://www.flickr.com/photos/41027404@N07

13. Watch Out For:
• Anchoring/Recency Effect
• Observer-Expectancy
Effect/Wording Bias
• Confirmation Bias
• Social Desirability Bias
• Clustering Illusion/Illusory
Correlation
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14. Let's Try It!
cc: Christian Haugen - https://www.flickr.com/photos/34073237@N04

15. Experience Sharing
1. List everything relevant you know about
your assigned user group - general
demographics, education, environment,
income, etc.
2. List what you want to find out about
regarding experience sharing for your users
and potential sources of information
3. Include expertise in the experience sharing,
but NOT IN A SPECIFIC PRODUCT.
cc: Leonrw - https://www.flickr.com/photos/28435348@N04

16. Defining Workflows
1. For your user group, describe a workflow
for experience sharing.
2. Describe an experience sharing workflow
that takes too long.
3. Describe how a different products
support/do not support their experience
sharing.
4. Describe what the number one thing they
want to accomplish is.
5. DO NOT CREATE A SOLUTION.
cc: Ian Ruotsala - https://www.flickr.com/photos/46813052@N00

17. Map Your Journey
• Think about how your workflows
connect (or don't)
• Create a map that shows a typical
day or week or segment for your
user in their experience sharing.
• Include before and after.
cc: marfis75 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/45409431@N00

18. What are the Parts of a Problem?
cc: Takashi(aes256) - https://www.flickr.com/photos/46151146@N04

19. Problems Are NOT Complaints
cc: MTSOfan - https://www.flickr.com/photos/8628862@N05

20. Aspects of a Problem
• Action/Barriers/Results
• Context
• Motivation/Interest
• Measure/Definition of Success
• Severity/Impact
• Variables/Constants
cc: jah~ - https://www.flickr.com/photos/23019891@N00

21. Action/Barrier/Results
• What action is the actor trying to do?
• What gets in the way of them doing
this?
• What do they want as a result of this
action?
• DO NOT MENTION THE PRODUCT
cc: JD Hancock - https://www.flickr.com/photos/83346641@N00

22. Context
• When does this happen?
• Where does this happen?
• What is going on when this
happens?
• What happens before/after this?
cc: ccPixs.com - https://www.flickr.com/photos/86530412@N02

23. Motivation/Interest
• Why does the actor want to do
this?
• Why?
• Why?
• Why?
• Why?
cc: burrows.nichole28 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/130132803@N07

24. Measurement of Success
• How will they know that they were
successful?
• How do they measure that today?
• What action do they take based on
that success?
• Is there more than one kind of
success? List them.
cc: johnwiechecki - https://www.flickr.com/photos/97706295@N00

25. Severity/Impact
• What happens if they are NOT
successful? What is the cost?
• What happens if they are
successful? What is the profit?
cc: Walter-Wilhelm - https://www.flickr.com/photos/38939582@N04

26. Variables/Constants
• What changes? How much
does it change?
• What stays the same?
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27. Let's Try It
cc: Antoine Lang-Cavelier - https://www.flickr.com/photos/41432243@N03

28. Problem Aspects
1. Write down each aspect on a
different sticky note
2. Stick them to your journey
map. Where do they fit?
cc: Joey Day - https://www.flickr.com/photos/76967796@N00

29. Assemble the Data
STILL NO SOLUTIONS!!
cc: Dave Dugdale - https://www.flickr.com/photos/37387065@N05

30. When CONTEXT, ACTOR
wants/needs to ACTION for
RESULT/SUCCESS because of
MOTIVATION but cannot because
of BARRIER which causes
IMPACT/SEVERITY.
CONSTANTS remain steady.
VARIABLES change DELTA.
cc: Poe Tatum - https://www.flickr.com/photos/8064937@N05

31. Piece It Together
cc: Horia Varlan - https://www.flickr.com/photos/10361931@N06

32. Using Your Cards
• Follow the template to assemble one
or more problem statements
• Move the cards around - what makes
sense? Where are the holes?
• List further research to be done.
cc: Horia Varlan - https://www.flickr.com/photos/10361931@N06

33. Give It Life
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34. Tell Us Your Story!
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35. Dr. Rebecca Baker
rebecca.baker@activenetwork.com
cc: an untrained eye - https://www.flickr.com/photos/26312642@N00

36. A Few Resources on Critical Thinking
• Critical Thinking for UX Designers
http://www.slideshare.net/stephenpa/critical-thinking-forux-
designers-workshop
• Become a Better Designer Through Critical
Thinkinghttp://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/critical-
thinking/
• A Plea for More Critical Thinking in Design, Please
http://www.fastcompany.com/1327667/plea-more-critical-
thinking-design-please
• CriticalThinking.Net http://www.criticalthinking.net/index.html

37. A Few Resources on Problem Definition
• Rosenhead, J. (1996) What's the problem? An introduction to
problem structuring methods Interfaces 26 (6), 117-131
• Portigal, S. (2016) Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User
Research War Stories. Rosenfeld Media.
• Quesenbery, W. and Brooks, K. (2010) Storytelling for User
Experience. Brooklyn, NY: Rosefeld Media, LLC
• Hackos, J. and Redish, J. (1998) User and Task Analysis for Interface
Design. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Spool, J. (2014, Oct 01) Promise, Vision, Scenario and User. [Blog
post] Retrieved from
http://www.uie.com/articles/promise_vision_scenario/
• Inchauste, F. (2010, Jan 29) Better UX with Story Telling. Smashing
Magazine. Retrieved from
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/29/better-user-
experience-using-storytelling-part-one/