How is it going? Did you find at least 10 ideas for your portfolio projects? I know it is not easy to do.
Usually, the problem with these types of exercises is that your analytical thinking kicks in and stalls the creative thinking. Instead of coming up with more ideas, you start analyzing the ideas that you already have. “Is it interesting? Is it something I really care about? How will it look in my portfolio?”… These are all valid questions. But it is best to leave them until later.
Don’t worry if you didn’t get to 10 ideas. Take a look at the ideas you have, and pick one. Don’t think about it too much, just pick something that resonates with you the most. That is one perk you have now. You get to pick projects to work on!
Defining the problem
Now, when you have a general idea of what your project is, you need to define a problem that you will be solving for the case study.
You might be thinking that you already know, but don’t take this step for granted.
You will be surprised how many businesses jump to building solutions without actually defining the problem they are trying to solve.
I don’t mean they have no idea about what they are building, or why. What I mean is, their understanding is rather shallow, and thus the resulting products either fail completely, or they fall short of customer’s expectations. We don’t want to make that mistake.
Albert Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem, and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
The way I read Einstein’s quote is “The clearer (or specific) you are about the problem, the easier it is to come up with a solution”. So, let’s think about the problem, and make sure it is well defined.
Besides, problem definition will become an important part of your case study, and probably the first part that everyone will see, so you should plan to spend sufficient time working on it.
An example
I don’t know what ideas you have on your list, so I will give you a general example.
Starting point
When it comes to improving existing products the starting point might be as general as “improve Spotify”, or “improve interface of a microwave oven”. It can be a bit more specific “onboarding process for Quora sucks”, or “I don’t get how to use Instagram Stories”. Chances are these are types of requirements you might be working with in your day to day job as a UX designer. None of these statements define the problem well, so it is important to learn to dive deep into the problem, and define it well.
This is the time to get analytical, and start asking questions! Lots of questions!
Let’s take a closer look at “Improve Spotify”.
BTW, I am not picking on Spotify, or saying that something is obviously wrong with it. It is just one of the ideas I had for my own list of projects.
Diving in
To be honest, I have a fairly specific issue with Spotify: I don’t like songs Spotify suggests to me. Is there a way to make it better? Right there, is a fairly specific problem we can work with.
We can define it like this: Improve song suggestions feature of Spotify.
It is a decent problem definition. We could roll with it. But we should dig deeper, and should ask more questions:
Does it affect users on desktop, mobile, or both versions of the app?
Is it a problem for a specific set of users?
Who are those users?
Do they have a subscription?
What are their listening habits?
Are they skipping around different genres, or do they stick to a particular genre?
Do they “like” songs?
Are they saving songs they like to playlists?
You might have to do some research to find answers to these questions. Ask your friends, see what is said online. You might even want to create a poll or survey to get answers.
Many answers will not directly affect the problem definition, but you will get a deeper and broader understanding of the problem, and potentially get hints at the solution. Your findings will be a great addition to the case study.
Adding dimension to the problem definition
But there is more. Remember, how we talked about UX designers working with three factors: user needs, business goals, and technical constraints? The problem should be framed with all three in mind. So there are more questions we should ask:
Will solving this problem have a positive impact on business?
If so, how?
Of course, we don’t work for Spotify but as for any business side of things, it is safe to assume that better song suggestions would lead to more playback time and higher retention rates, that means more ad or subscription revenue.
It is tough to say anything about technical constraints at this point, so we can safely set them aside for now.
Now, instead of “Improve song suggestions feature of Spotify” our problem definition can be “Some users are not satisfied with song suggestions in Spotify. Improving this feature will lead to higher customer satisfaction, and higher retention rates that will have a positive impact on the business”.
Most important work you can do!
This might seem like a lot of extra work, but that is the most important work you can do for your case study, and for any design project.
As you are working on the problem definition, as the problem becomes better defined, you will start falling in love with it.
You see how it impacts you and others. You see the business potential. That should excite you! That is a reason you want to get into UX design in the first place, isn’t it?
Armed with deep understanding, and crystal clear definition of a problem, you will be supercharged to solve the problem in no time!
Take some time to work through an idea of your choice, and work on defining it as well as you can. Aim for a concise but comprehensive definition that speaks both to the user needs, and business goals.
It will take some practice. Feel free to shot me an email with what you come up with. I’ll be happy to provide feedback!