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This question is always in the context of a design problem, perhaps dealing with the design of an entire product or a specific feature. This question re-frames and combines a few different “standard” interview questions. It gets at what someone might be worried about. It gets at what they perceive to be essential for success. It can also draw to the surface their perception of the key user need. Finally, it asks them to define the central problem. The tilt of their response – which angle they take to answer the question – offers some insight into how they approach projects like this one.
It’s easy to just ask folks directly involved with designing and developing a solution. But I like asking this of people more connected to the problem space – prospective users, customer support, and domain experts – because they’re looking at things from that perspective. They’re standing in the middle of the problem space and from there can look around to point at the aspect of the problem that needs greatest attention.
Even after talking to folks for an hour, when I ask this question I sometimes get a completely unexpected answer. Something about asking the question in this way, perhaps, encourages people to reveal what might be their true priority. Such insight can guide the design process. giving the design team an appropriate north star or, at the very least, a useful constraint. Here’s the thing: what they think we need to get right may not be correct. Perhaps they have trouble stepping outside their own day-to-day concerns or they are too preoccupied with a favored feature or solution. What their response does offer, however, is a guide to framing the outcomes of the design work.
Undertaking something – anything – new affords an opportunity to ask this question. Starting an entire new project, embarking on a feature update, or even planning a workshop with stakeholders are all situations in which this question is meaningful.
This question pairs nicely with “What keeps you up at night?” They’re two sides of the same coin: one taking a more optimistic and one a more pessimistic lens to establishing a guiding principle for the task or project. I also like to ask, “Why?” As in, “Why is it important for us to get that right?” Another way of framing that is, “What happens if we get it wrong?”
What would our users say is the most important thing for us to get right?
No doubt this version of the question gives you more insight about what the respondent thinks about the users, rather than an accurate picture of the users. Still, it can contribute to your north star definition, or at least give you a hypothesis to evaluate with some research. You can also ask this version of the question immediately following the original version to compare and contrast what’s important to the organization vs. the perception of what’s important to the users.
What is one thing the current product gets right?
Instead of asking about a future version of the product, ask about the current version of the product. This can be helpful when everyone has been talking badly about the current product as a tactic for letting go of it. But understanding what’s going well contributes to the foundation upon which to build the new version. Building something new isn’t building something from scratch