Ideas For Creative Solutions For Your Product

Q: "How do I create innovative out-of-the-box solutions for my product?"

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Whether you opt for frameworks like double-diamond or design thinking, you'll begin by exploring the expanse of the problem space. Then, you'll launch yourself into the solution space with a creative switch.

Without going into details of established frameworks, I'll share a few pointers here for each arena:

PROBLEM SPACE

1) Build user empathy through thoughtful questions

Uncover the jobs-to-be-done by digging deep. What is it they are really trying to solve?

Ex:

⇒ Shallow analysis: "Influencer X wants a powerful design tool that helps them build professional social media posts."

vs.

⇒ Job-to-be-done could be: "Influencer X wants to save money on hiring a professional designer by creating social posts themselves without the need to remember image dimensions of each social channel."

2) Don't "invent" problems that simply don't exist

Idea ⇒ "Wouldn't it be cool to give HR a way to add nice stock photos to their job postings?"

Reality ⇒ HR doesn't have time + all digital visuals need to go through Marketing first.

3) Deliberate on the wording of the problem

The wrong 'frame' can easily lead product & design teams down a rabbit hole. Instead, consider "reframing" problems to access a different perspective.

Ex:

Problem ⇒ How can I make the load time of this page faster?

Re-framed ⇒ How can I make the time the user has to wait more pleasant?

SOLUTION SPACE

Personally, there are 5 techniques that I've seen come in handy when ideating solutions to defined problems:

1) Abstraction

Noticing a pattern in the problem and applying a concept from another industry.

Ex:

Another field ⇒ Sell a great printer at a cheap price. Make money over time through cartridges.

Applied to my field ⇒ Give away an amazing video editing tool. Make money on storage & backups.

2) Inversion

Flip the problem upside down to reveal different solutions.

Ex:

Forward-thinking ⇒ How can I become more productive with my time at work?

Inversion ⇒ What are things that make me less productive with my time at work? How can I block those distractions?

3) Working backwards

Instead of building a product vision and then thinking what to build, draft what your launch page should say to impress audiences and work backwards to achieve that wow impact.

4) Concoction

Combine two ideas together to make something more powerful.

Ex:

Idea A ⇒ LucidChart offers a digital canvas.

Idea B ⇒ InvisionApp allows people to collaborative on visual designs.

A+ B ⇒ Create a collaboration-enabled digital canvas (Miro).

5) Assumption culling

Knock down pre-conditions you've self-constructed by challenging them.

Goal ⇒ User wants to post a classifieds ad for a car. Assumption: User must provide an image and all the details of the car.

Challenge ⇒ Why do we need them to enter car details?

Idea ⇒ Can we auto-generate the details of the car by recognizing the car in the image?