The big idea: Teams often work the wrong problem, so before you design anything, name what kind of problem you face, frame a question that allows many answers, and learn what is already known.
In 60 seconds
- Name the problem type first: gravity, anchor, technical or adaptive. HCD is built for adaptive challenges.
- A good design question aims at real impact, allows very different solutions and fits your context.
- Secondary research gives you the facts, recent innovations and similar solutions around the stories you will hear.
Do this: sort your team’s problem, tune your design question until it passes the variety test, and split the secondary research before fieldwork.
How framing the challenge works
We often work the wrong problems. People and organizations can spend years on the same problem, trying the same fixes. Relationship researcher John Gottman found that most of the conflicts couples fight about are perpetual: they never get resolved. Before your team writes a design question, name what kind of problem you are facing.
The Four Types of Problems
Gravity
Impossible to overcome. Like gravity, arguing with it wastes your time.
Your move: accept it and design around it.
Anchor
You are stuck on one solution, and that solution has become the problem.
Your move: set the fix aside and go back to the need.
Technical
A known fix exists. A subject matter expert or a procedure can solve it.
Your move: call the expert. Do not spend a design week on it.
Adaptive
Thorny, wicked problems. Solving them means changing beliefs, values (the promises we keep) and behaviors.
Your move: this is what HCD is for. Go learn from people.
The Four Types of Problems is a BombDiggity framework by Jules and Lane Morris.
Technical problem
- Easy to spot. Most people agree what is wrong.
- An expert fixes it. Authority or a procedure works.
- Change stays in one place. Usually inside one team.
- Fast. It can often be fixed by decision.
Adaptive challenge
- Hard to spot. And easy to deny.
- The people with the problem do the work. No one can hand them the answer.
- Change in many places. It crosses teams and organizations.
- Slow. It takes experiments, learning and time. People often resist.
The biggest leadership mistake
Ronald Heifetz and colleagues at Harvard, who developed adaptive leadership, point to one failure above the rest: treating an adaptive challenge as if it were technical. Buying a tool or issuing a rule will not fix a problem that asks people to change. For the leadership side, see Leading Through Design.
Frame the design challenge
A design challenge is the question your whole project answers. Framing it is more art than science, and teams rarely get it right on the first try. In London the class challenge was “How might we delight tourists in London?” It is broad on purpose. Your team tweaks it as you learn. A good challenge passes three tests.
Ultimate impact
It aims at a change in people’s lives, not an output for the organization.
Watch out: “more downloads” is a metric, not an impact.
Variety of solutions
You can name several very different answers. If only one fits, the solution is hiding in the question.
Watch out: a product name inside the question.
Context and constraints
It fits the real setting: time, money, rules, culture and who decides.
Watch out: a question so open it ignores the walls you work within.
Solutions come in five shapes
Experiences, spaces, activities, services and products. If every idea your question invites is a product (often an app), widen it.
Tweak the questionSix questions to run on any draft, with examples from three settings
- What job, opportunity or problem are we really trying to solve?
- Take a stab at the How Might We design question.
- What is the ultimate impact we want to have?
- What are some possible solutions? Do they vary?
- What context and constraints are we facing?
- Does the question need adjusting? Rewrite it and try again.
| Setting | First draft | Tweaked |
|---|---|---|
| A city bus route | How might we get riders to use our tracking app? | How might we help night-shift workers feel safe and sure getting home by bus? |
| A regional food bank | How might we fix food insecurity? | How might we help working parents pick up groceries without missing a shift? |
| A finance team’s month-end close | How might we add a checklist to the close? | How might we help new analysts close the books without staying until midnight? |
These are made-up examples for practice. Writing many smaller questions from your point of view comes later, on the How Might We page.
Secondary research in four stepsGet smart on the challenge before you talk to anyone
- Scan the field. Read recent news, articles and journals on your challenge to learn what is new.
- Find recent innovations. They can be technological, behavioral or cultural. Knowing the edge of what is possible helps you ask better questions.
- Study existing and similar solutions. Which worked? Which failed? What from another setting feels close to what you might design?
- Gather facts and figures. Interviews give you stories. Secondary research gives you the numbers and context around them.
In class, capture each fact on its own sticky note, share in small groups, then cluster them. Adapted in our own words from the IDEO.org Field Guide to Human-Centered Design. Secondary research grows into a full literature review in BUAD 317: see Focus Area and Literature Review.
Partnering with AI for secondary researchEight prompting moves (BombDiggity)
| Move | Try a prompt like |
|---|---|
| Push it | “That’s a start. Ask me three questions, then give me a better answer.” |
| Give it a perspective | “Answer as a night-shift nurse who rides the bus home.” |
| Ask it to organize | “Sort these findings into a table: problem, who it affects, source.” |
| Reframe a poor answer | Ask the same thing a new way instead of accepting a weak reply. |
| Set guardrails | “No paid solutions. Six-month timeline. Point out any bias in your sources.” |
| Show good examples | Paste one strong finding and ask for more like it. |
| Give it data, ask for if/then | “Given these ridership numbers, what if/then hypotheses could we test?” |
| Apply a framework | “Using a human-centered design approach…” or “Using a jobs-to-be-done approach…” |
Check every fact AI gives you against a real source. Never paste confidential client or personal data into a public tool. If your team uses AI, add the AI statement the syllabus requires.
Gripes and Dreams warm-upTen minutes that turn your own experience into a starting map
- Each person thinks of a recent time they were the user. In London, that was a trip you took since you arrived.
- Gripes: write what bugged, annoyed or frustrated you, one per sticky note.
- Dreams: finish the line “In a perfect world, I’d love to see…”
- Cluster the notes. Gripes that show up again and again point to where to look first. Your own experience is a starting point, not evidence. Fieldwork tests it.
Build the team and rotate rolesThree interview roles that switch every time
Interview lead
Asks the questions and keeps the conversation going.
Photographer and documenter
Captures photos and details, with permission.
Note taker
Writes quotes word for word, plus what they see.
Rotate roles after every interview so everyone practices each one. Strong teams mix majors and strengths on purpose. For the Ten Faces team roles, see Leading Through Design.
Try it: Problem Sorter and Challenge Tuner
Tool · IB 407
Problem Sorter and Challenge Tuner
Find out what kind of problem you have, then tune a design question worth a week of fieldwork.
- 1Sort
- 2Tune
- 3Share
Problem type
Your design question
Why this problem type
All checks
Put it to work: frame your London challenge before fieldwork
Day 2 sets up your Empathy phase (40 points). A team that frames the right problem walks into fieldwork knowing who to talk to and what it needs to learn. Expect to tweak your question again after your first interviews.
Run Gripes and Dreams
Each teammate adds gripes and dreams from their own time as the user. Cluster them.
Your deliverable: a photo of your clustered notes in the class Facebook Group.
Sort the problem
Run your challenge through the Problem Sorter. If it comes back anchor or gravity, talk it through before you write anything.
Your deliverable: one line in your individual notebook: “Our problem is ___ because ___.”
Tweak the question
Name the impact, three different kinds of solutions and your constraints. Adjust the question until all checks pass.
Your deliverable: your tuned design question at the top of your team’s project plan.
Do secondary research
Split the four steps across the team. Use the AI moves, and check every fact against a real source.
Your deliverable: a wall of one-fact sticky notes, and your daily a-ha insight in the Facebook Group daily doc.
Build the team and plan the research
Assign interview lead, documenter and note taker, and set the rotation. List who you will talk to first.
Your deliverable: your plan slide and a role rotation for your interview plan.
Examples: wrong problem, right problemFour quick cases from different fields
A warehouse misses shipping times
The manager is sure a new scanner will fix it (anchor). Interviews show pickers wait on unclear priorities from two supervisors (adaptive).
A clinic’s waiting room is full
Patients arrive early because the bus only runs hourly (gravity for the clinic). The question becomes how to make that wait useful.
A campus printer keeps jamming
IT knows the fix (technical). No design week needed. Call IT.
London visitors feel rushed
Itineraries, transit, crowds and expectations all play a part (adaptive). The class challenge starts here.
These are made-up examples for practice.
Do this, not thatHabits that keep you on the right problem
Do this
- Name the problem type before you write the question.
- Say your favorite fix out loud, then set it aside.
- Test the question by naming three different kinds of solutions.
- Check AI facts against real sources.
- Rotate interview roles every time.
Not that
- Spending a design week on a problem an expert could fix.
- Fighting a gravity problem instead of designing around it.
- A question with an app already inside it.
- Treating your own gripes as proof.
- The same person leading every interview.
Before you head into fieldworkA quick checklist
- [ ] We named our problem type and can say why.
- [ ] Our design question starts with “How might we” and names people and a change.
- [ ] We can name three different kinds of solutions for it.
- [ ] We listed our context and constraints.
- [ ] Our secondary research facts each have a real source.
- [ ] We wrote the AI statement if we used AI.
- [ ] Every teammate has an interview role, and we know how we rotate.
Go deeper
Back to all IB 407 topics · Next: Empathy Fieldwork and Observation
In-class team activity · 25 min
Gripes, Anchors and the Right Question
By the end: Clustered gripes and dreams, your team's challenge sorted into one of the four problem types, a tuned design question that passed a live variety test, and a secondary research split. Your instructor will give you the password in class.
Part of the Smith GLS human-centered leadership sequence: IB 407, BUAD 317, BUAD 497 and BUAD 417, toward the Human Centered Consulting Certificate.
Frequently asked questions
What are the four types of problems in human-centered design?
The four types are gravity, anchor, technical and adaptive. Gravity problems cannot be overcome, so you accept them and design around them. Anchor problems happen when one solution has become the problem. Technical problems have a known fix an expert can apply. Adaptive problems require changing beliefs, values and behaviors, and that is what HCD is for. The framework is by Jules and Lane Morris.
How do you write a good design challenge question?
A good design challenge passes three tests: it aims at ultimate impact in people's lives, it allows a variety of very different solutions, and it fits the real context and constraints. Start with a How Might We draft, name the impact you want, list possible solutions and check whether they vary, then rewrite the question until every check passes.
What is the difference between a technical problem and an adaptive challenge?
A technical problem has a known fix that an expert or procedure can apply, usually quickly and inside one team. An adaptive challenge is hard to spot, crosses teams, takes experiments and time, and requires the people with the problem to change. Ronald Heifetz and colleagues at Harvard name the biggest leadership mistake as treating an adaptive challenge as if it were technical.
What are the four steps of secondary research before design interviews?
Secondary research has four steps: scan the field with recent news, articles and journals; find recent innovations, whether technological, behavioral or cultural; study existing and similar solutions to see what worked and what failed; and gather facts and figures. Interviews give you stories, while secondary research gives you the numbers and context around them. The steps are adapted from the IDEO.org Field Guide.
How can students use AI for secondary research on a design challenge?
Students can partner with AI using eight prompting moves: push it, give it a perspective, ask it to organize, reframe a poor answer, set guardrails, show good examples, give it data and ask for if/then hypotheses, and apply a framework. Check every fact AI gives you against a real source, and never paste confidential client or personal data into a public tool.