https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-solve-problems-6bf14222e424
It’s 2012 and our team has just joined Airbnb. We’re tasked with building out a “social travel” experience for Airbnb travelers. The thinking is that travelers on Airbnb are siloed across the city, and if we make it easier for guests to meet up and do things together, Airbnb trips would be significantly more meaningful. We work long and hard to design an amazing experience for travelers to discover fun local things to do with other travelers.
Fast forward to 6 months later when we launch the V1 in San Francisco. The product is beautiful and the experiences smooth. Adoption however…not so much 📉. A small percentage of travelers give it a shot, and it generally goes OK, however it’s far from the reaction we were looking for. We iterate a bit, make some incremental improvements, but a few months later we end it and move on.
An early design of the product we launched, giving Airbnb travelers an easy way to find fun things to do with other travelers — designs courtesy of Shaun Modi
I personally took many learnings away from that experience, but most of all it instilled in me the importance of getting the problem statement right. Though many factors contribute to a project’s failure, nothing is more certain to cause a project to fail than a misunderstanding of the problem you are solving. In the example above, we recognized too late that the real problem we should have been solving was not “travelers want to hang out with other travelers”, but instead, “travelers want to find high quality non-touristy things to do.” Hanging out with other travelers is one solution to this, not the actual problem. Luckily another team recognized this and ended up launching a much better solution, Airbnb Experiences, a few years later.
As I noted in my last post, I firmly believe that nailing the problem statement is the single most important step in solving any problem. It’s deceptively easy to get wrong, and when done well it’s a superpower of the best leaders. Luckily all it takes is three simple steps:
“True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.” — Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck)
This framework is most effective when you have a project in mind, either a new product or a new feature. Before you dive into design or engineering, go through the following steps to set your project up for success.
If your team doesn’t have a clear vision (i.e. where you’re going) or overall strategy (i.e. how you’ll get there), pause here and figure these things out first; this, this, and this will help.
This guide is most helpful at the tactics level
Start by answering these questions about your project: