Creating problems statements is a crucial step that should be taken to ensure that unspoken pain points are identified. Although it is bad practice to make assumptions about user experience, problem statements are created to address problems users have that they might not feel comfortable saying or just don’t know how to express them.
Specifically for pain points, they can fall in a couple categories, which include:
- Financial, or money-related pain points.
- Product, which are pain points related to quality issues.
- Process, which are pain points related to the user’s journey.
- Support, which are pain points related to getting help from customer service.
Example:
John Smith is a single dad in his mid fifties (55), and has 2 teenagers who recently fell in love with sports. John is a busy dad working full-time and taking his kids to sports practice. John doesn’t have time to grocery shop so his teenagers recommended for him to download a home delivery grocery application on his phone, even though he is not technology savvy. Since John has a busy schedule, he has no time to grocery shop so he is turning to his grocery delivery app for help.
In John’s case, the pain point is that he is not technology savvy so he struggles to use the app. This falls under the category of process for pain points.
Now that we have identified John’s pain points, we need to be sure we know enough about his needs to write a problem statement. Problem statements provide a clear description of the user’s need that should be addressed.
To build a problem statement, we utilize the 5 Ws and H framework.
Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How
- Who is experiencing the problem? Knowing your users and their background is key to creating successful solutions for them.
- What are the pain points you’re trying to solve? Determining a user’s pain points early allows you to answer the rest of these questions and clarify the context of the pain points.
- Where is the user when they’re using the product? A user’s physical context matters to your design.
- When does the problem occur? Maybe it’s right after the end of a long and tedious process, or maybe it’s something that happens daily. Knowing when the problem occurs can help you better empathize with the user’s feelings.
- Why is the problem important? Knowing how this problem affects your user’s experience and life will help to clarify the potential consequences.
- How are users reaching their goals by using the product? Understanding how users reach their goals allows you to map the user journey that they take through your product.
John’s grocery app example:
- Who: A busy dad
- What: John wants to get his groceries delivered
- Where: John is likely using the application at work or sports events
- When: John gets confused when he tried to send items to his cart
- Why: John isn’t technology savvy so he doesn’t have a lot of technology experience
- How: John wants a button next to the grocery item that allows his to instantly add to cart
Once all questions are answered, we can now move onto defining the final problem statement.
Problem statement formula:
[USER NAME] is a/an [USER CHARACTERISTICS] who needs [USER NEEDS] because [INSIGHT].
JOHN is busy dad who needs AN EASY APP EXPERIENCE TO DELIVER GROCERIES because HE’S NOT TECHNOLOGY SAVVY.
These problem statements allow us to be clear on what the users goals are so as UX designers we can identify the constraints that prevent users from achieving their goal.