The three human forces that drive design solutions
How to use these forces to design things people want.
“Solve a problem people have” — every business 101 lesson ever taught.
Everyone who builds a business or designs a product dreams about making things people want. But anyone who’s tried it knows it’s not that simple. In fact, building something nobody wants is the number one reason startups fail.
As designers, our job is to create human desirability. Which means, our success or failure hinges on whether people will adopt and/or receive value from the products & services that we design.
And as my grandmother always says: you can’t make things people want unless you understand the causal forces that perpetuate product adoption.
God bless her.
The real clues that give actionable insight
If you only look at a problem someone has, you’ll find the amount of information you have to go off of is incredibly small. Plus, looking solely at problems tends to break down in many common scenarios — what human problem does a horror movie solve? Sure, it may solve my boredom, but as someone ‘designing’ a horror movie that’s hardly a reason to choose horror over comedy.
Instead, if you examine the person, situation, and problem,you’ll have a much stronger idea of how to actually create something this person wants.
Using the horror movie as an example, maybe we’d see that John Doe is a thrillseeker (person), happens to have had a really mundane day at work (situation), and as a result is now at home during the evening (situation) and bored to death (problem).
Now you’ve got something interesting to work with.
The Outcome Summary of the 3 Forces
Armed with the three forces, you can now project what this person would want. This becomes the basis that informs what you design.
John, a millennial thrillseeker, is bored, on his couch after a long day at work, wanting something thrilling to occupy his evening before hitting the bed.
Enter It: Chapter One. Or Chapter Two, but nobody liked Chapter Two.
And to take it a step further — since John has no cable TV as a millennial, the best way for him to give him his solution is through a stream online.
**Some people call this a Job To Be Done, but I find that tends to exclude people’s attributes which in some cases do cause them to want specific solutions. A five-year-old, being five, does cause him/her to like bright colors and exciting sounds.
Applications to design fields
Say your job is to design a new website/web app. Armed with the three forces, you could now unearth how to design the ideal solution for your users.
Jane, aged 70, needs to check on her medical records as she may have eaten something during Christmas that caused her irritable bowel syndrome. She wants to see if there’s a family history of it.
Her age tells you perhaps that the product typography should have larger sizes. Her situation tells you that she needs this information incredibly urgently, in as few steps as possible. Her problem tells you it could be embarrassing and that the task should be performed privately.
..and the list goes on. Armed with the knowledge of these forces, you can start to unearth what would be an ideal product design.
Often, designers fall into the trap of thinking that designing products is about coming up with new ideas out of thin air — rather, if these forces are any evidence, the analogy is closer to the unearthing of a fossil.
The solution might not be a product at all
Once you’ve uncovered these forces, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the only solution is a product. All great products are solutions to problems, but not solutions need to be products.
Sometimes the best thing to design is actually a process of some sort. Yes, a website could help Jane find her family’s history with irritable bowel syndrome, but so could a phone call to her relatives. When designing, you have to keep the alternative in mind as it’ll help inform and improve on your designs.