Product Thinking for Designers Part 2: How to Find Impactful Problems and Great Markets as a Designer
How to use 5W1H, the Mom Test, and JTBD to find real user problems that evolve into great markets.
Finding Problems that Evolve into Markets
There are numerous approaches to finding a “great market.” Data scientists, marketing experts, and product managers all have their preferred frameworks for the market scouting process. Designers are no exception; we are also equipped with our own valuable tools to help the team find great markets. At the root of a significant market is a real problem waiting for a painkiller solution. Designers are well-positioned with their human-driven approach to uncover these problems and expand them into potential markets. When the team has an idea about a potential market, I use the “5W1H” and “Mom Test” questioning frameworks to understand their problem, which I then articulate as a JTBD, which evolves into a market hypothesis. A market hypothesis describes the product category, the customer, their problem, and their motivation to find a solution.
5W1H
5W1H (what, who, why, where, when, and how) is a questioning framework used to understand the root cause of a problem and the larger problem space around it. You should not be asking these questions word for word but instead asking these questions in a natural way without introducing bias. Mastering how to extract the answers for these questions would make any designer a valuable asset in helping the team uncover potential markets. I’ve outlined some of the research question goals for this framework below; use this as a starting point.
Depending on your research goals, I would recommend focusing on specific facets of the 5W1H over others. For instance, if you want to harness divergent thinking to expand your problem statement, focus on “why” and “what.” Conversely, if you’re going to harness convergent thinking and narrow potential solutions, focus on asking “how,” “who,” “when,” and “where.”
The Mom Test
The “Mom Test” is a framework for crafting good questions that ”even your mom can’t lie to you about.” In other words, it helps reduce bias and prevents your customers from subconsciously lying to you. The three tenants of the mom test are (1) talk about the customer’s life instead of your idea, (2) ask about specifics in the past instead of generics or opinions about the future and (3) talk less and listen more.
Let’s say you wanted to build a workout app to help people reach their fitness goals. For (1) instead of asking, “What do you think about this product idea?”, ask them, “What makes it hard for you to stick to your workout routine?” For (2), instead of asking, “On average, how many times do you workout each week?”, ask, “How many times did you work out last week?” By framing questions using this set of rules, you’re much more likely to get unbiased answers. You can combine this with the 5W1H technique for even better results. These techniques seem simple at a glance but can take years to master.
JTBD (Job to Be Done)
After understanding people’s problems with “5W1H” and the “Mom Test,” I then condense my insights using the JTBD framework. The JTBD (Job to Be Done) framework takes the stance that “people don’t purchase products, they “hire” them to make progress towards specific goals.” People tend to want to buy products that promise a better vision of themselves. Customers don’t care what products they use to achieve their goals.
Upgrade your user, not your product. Don’t build better cameras — build better photographers.
— Kathy Sierra
The JTBD template I use is: “When _________ (the situation), I want to _________ (motivation), so I can (expected outcomes)”. A bad JTBD is: “When I walk into a camera store (the situation), I want to buy a camera (motivation), so I have a camera (expected outcomes).” A better JTBD is: “When I see something interesting in person (the situation), I want to remember it (motivation), so I want to take a great photo (expected outcomes).”
A well-crafted JTBD is crucial in understanding what a market needs and acts as the bridge between the market and the product. The JTBD is best leveraged to articulate your product’s value to prospective customers in a way that they understand. Ideally, your team truly cares about the customer’s job and wants to empower your customers to become that better version of themselves.
Simon Sinek articulates this concept beautifully in his famous Ted Talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action,” in which he argues excellent companies start with “why” instead of “what.” As I’ve repeated multiple times, “start with the market (why) instead of the product (what).”
Ever wonder why Microsoft has lost out to Apple throughout the years? Look at the difference between how they advertise their products. Microsoft's ad starts with the “what” and focuses on the product. On the other hand, Apple's ad starts with the “why” and focuses on the job. Apple can do this because they’ve understood their market (their customer and their job).
Evaluating Potential Markets
After truly understanding your customers, their problems, and deriving the “job” they want to be done, you’ll have your market. Brain Balfour (CEO of Reforge) breaks down the four elements he looks at to evaluate a potential market as the following: product category, who (pick one target audience), problems, and motivations. On the topic of motivations, you want to find a problem in which your product could be a “pain killer” (need to have) rather than a vitamin (nice to have). A customer will be more motivated to give your product a shot and continue using it if it's a pain killer for them. In the next part of this series, I’ll be explaining how to evaluate product concepts and PMF.
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