July 12, 2021
Product Thinking: Identifying the User and Their Problem to Be Solved
By Ward Andrews
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This is one of a series of blog posts exploring what product thinking is, why it matters, and how to develop it in your organization.
Product thinking starts with one question: what makes your product useful? That means identifying the right user and the real problem they need solved -- before you write a single line of code or design a single screen. Get those two things wrong and nothing else you build will fix it.
What Is Product Thinking and Why Does It Matter?
Product thinking is the discipline of solving real problems for real people. It keeps your product oriented around a core purpose instead of getting lost in a pile of features that feel good but go nowhere.
We covered the foundations of product thinking in a previous post. Here, we go deeper into the two things you need to nail first: the problem and the person.
What Problem Are You Trying to Solve?
The right problem is specific, real, and easy to define. If you can't describe it clearly, you haven't found it yet.
It's easy to get pulled toward features -- things that make people comfortable with your product. But features are only useful if they serve a larger purpose. Chase features for their own sake and you lose sight of why the product exists.
A clear definition of the problem matters more than the solution itself. Broken solutions can be fixed and adjusted. If you're chasing the wrong problem, no solution will save you.
As Steve Jobs put it: "Some people say give the customers what they want, but that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do."
That's how a product becomes not just comfortable but genuinely meaningful -- because it solves (and ideally anticipates) a core problem in someone's life.
If the problem is too vague or isn't grounded in lived experience, the product will feel irrelevant no matter how polished it looks. If the product is pointed at the wrong problem entirely, nobody will choose to buy or use it.
Whose Problem Are You Trying to Solve?
Identifying the problem is not enough on its own. That problem needs to be felt, experienced, and faced by a real person. Your job is to know that person as thoroughly as possible.
That means getting into the heads of your core target customers and users and genuinely empathizing with their needs around the problem. This isn't a one-time exercise. It's an ongoing process that gradually peels back the layers of who your core customers are and what they actually need.
Why We Prefer Archetypes Over Personas
Demographic details are useful for segmenting your audience for marketing purposes. But to build a product that solves real problems, the behaviors, attitudes, and environments of your customers matter far more than data points like age or gender.
Everyone on the design team needs a clear and evolving picture of the person on the other end of the product. Without that, you're building features with a 50/50 shot of being useful.
How Can You Be Sure You're Attacking the Right Problem?
You can't be 100% certain. But you can keep getting more confident the more you research and understand the underlying need.
Start with conversations. Talk to your core customers and users and learn what they believe about the problem they need your product to solve. But conversations alone are almost never enough.
Most people don't know what they want until they see it. They struggle to articulate their own needs. They often misunderstand their own behavior.
Real insight comes from watching what people do -- not just listening to what they say they do. Watch them in action and you'll be surprised how often their behavior directly contradicts their words.
The more you empathize with customers and users, the more you'll learn. And the more you learn, the more confidence you'll have that you're solving a real problem for real people.
Drawing Backwards to Find the Right Problem for the Right People
Clients come to us all the time thinking they have a clear understanding of the problem they're trying to solve -- only to realize through our process that they've been chasing the wrong one.
We have more than 20 years of experience and a proven process that gives you a 360-degree view of the problem, the people who have it, and the solutions that will actually help them.
Let's start a conversation about how we can help you do the same.
FAQ
What is product thinking? Product thinking is the discipline of building products around solving a specific, real problem for a specific, real person -- rather than accumulating features that don't serve a clear purpose.
Why is defining the problem more important than designing the solution? Because a flawed solution can be iterated and improved. But if you're solving the wrong problem, no amount of design or engineering will make the product successful.
What's the difference between archetypes and personas in product thinking? Personas often lean on demographic data like age and gender. Archetypes focus on behaviors, attitudes, and environments -- which are far more useful when you're trying to understand what someone actually needs from a product.
How do you find out what users really need if they can't always articulate it? By watching what they do, not just listening to what they say. People often contradict themselves in behavior. Observing users in action reveals the subconscious motivations that drive decisions.
How do you know when you've found the right problem to solve? You never reach 100% certainty. But the more you research, observe, and empathize with real users, the more confident you become that you're addressing a genuine need rather than a convenient assumption.
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