Design Fundamentals in Two Questions: Part 1: Asking What?
How asking Why and What can make a difference to what you make
Design is fundamentally shaped by two key questions:
What are you trying to improve?
Who are trying to improve it for?
Spend the energy on exploring and answering these two questions, and you’ll find yourself far along the path to being a great designer. Most importantly, you’ll solve problems and create value for people.
Design is as much about asking the right questions as it is about providing answers through the things we create. But in these two questions, we find layers of design practice worth exploring.
In this article, I’m looking at the first of these two questions.
What are you trying to improve?
The what in design work isn’t as straightforward as you think. I find that ‘what’ often isn’t obvious. What is often an issue that is wrapped up in many other things, as we shall see.
For example, what could be “wait times to see a care professional or get treatment”. It seems straightforward enough, but let’s look a little further into this, and let’s do it by asking another question about the what: why?
This is where we return to a method I profiled in an earlier post (the five whys) and how it can support our quest for the what.
Why questions can be enormously helpful for determining our what.
Why is that the problem? Ask that multiple times, and you might find that the problem isn’t what you think it is.
The Case of Wait Times
To illustrate, let’s return to the topic of wait times to see a clinical practitioner.
At first glance, wait times could be an input problem (too many people, people coming too often, or at peak times or seasons, the system isn’t set up to handle). It could be a supply problem (too few staff, poor scheduling). What if it were an efficiency problem? (People taking too long to be processed with administration forms, seen through check-ups, or appointments taking longer than necessary). Or what if the problem isn’t the problem you think?
Wait times matter more when 1) the wait is unexpected or seen as unreasonable, 2) there isn’t a reliable sense of how long the wait is, or 3) it is uncomfortable (physically, psychologically, or just boring).
An example Rory Sutherland uses involves train times and the prevailing belief that travellers seek expediency (shorter times) as their goal. He looks at this more closely and suggests we might be less concerned with the time it takes to travel a route if we were comfortable with the travel we have. That is physical (comfy chairs, plenty of natural light), reliable, fast wifi so people can work, and the ability to provide entertainment or quality food and drink. (Rory also cheekily suggests having supermodels as serving staff would help).
These aren’t silly suggestions (except maybe the supermodels). Why could we not create more comfortable, productive, and attractive health environments where waiting wasn’t so unattractive?
The Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore (pictured below) is a stunning example of how the idea of waiting has been turned on its head by creating an environment so attractive that people often seek to delay their transit to allow a longer layover at the airport. It turns the travel needs on its head.
Design Choices
Continuing the wait-time example, other design choices include announcing a range of expected times. At the family health practice I go to, the clinic has a digital board that lists the names of patients waiting to see their practitioner, with the expected wait time next to each name. This is usually no more than 30 minutes for scheduled appointments, and can be as low as 5 minutes. For drop-ins, the time might be longer.
Evidence shows that knowing the wait time -- even if it is longer than desired -- greatly reduces discomfort and stress from the uncertainty. People feel better knowing that they will be seen in 40 minutes than if they are seen in 30 minutes, but without any information about when they might meet with a practitioner.
This is what Sault Ste. Marie’s emergency room did so with its new system, modelled on the Disney theme park’s Fast Pass system (see our previous Design Loft post). People can wait where they feel most comfortable (like at home), knowing that when they come to the emergency room, they will be seen shortly after arrival. For most of us with a choice, we would much rather be somewhere other than the admitting area of a hospital emergency department while we wait. Beyond making the operations of the ER more efficient and reducing overall waits, it managed to reduce the discomfort brought by the uncertainty about when patients would be seen.
All of this is what comes from the question: what are we trying to improve?
Spending the energy on exploring this one question can lead to surprising, innovative, and potentially more effective answers. It can lead to the kind of otherworldly designs like we see in Singapore — which are not only attractive, but functional. Why can’t we do this in health systems, education, and our community care?
This deeper exploration into how to ask is part of the advanced Design Loft program for paid members. If you’re interested in learning more, reach out or sign up to become a paid member.
Thanks for reading.
Photos by Rhys Kentish on Unsplash, Rasmus Gundorff Sæderup on Unsplash, and Nathaniel Yeo on Unsplash.