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One of my rules in consulting is simple: never solve the problem I am asked to solve. Why such a counterintuitive rule? Because, invariably, the problem I am asked to solve is not the real, fundamental, root problem. It is usually a symptom. Just as in Chapter 5, where the solution to accidents and errors was to determine the real, underlying cause of the events, in design, the secret to success is to understand what the real problem is.

It is amazing how often people solve the problem before them without bothering to question it. In my classes of graduate students in both engineering and business, I like to give them a problem to solve on the first day of class and then listen the next week to their wonderful solutions. They have masterful analyses, drawings, and illustrations. The MBA students show spreadsheets in which they have analyzed the demographics of the potential customer base. They show lots of numbers: costs, sales, margins, and profits. The engineers show detailed drawings and specifications. It is all well done, brilliantly presented.

When all the presentations are over, I congratulate them, but ask: “How do you know you solved the correct problem?” They are puzzled. Engineers and business people are trained to solve problems. Why would anyone ever give them the wrong problem? “Where do you think the problems come from?” I ask. The real world is not like the university. In the university, professors make up artificial problems. In the real world, the problems do not come in nice, neat packages. They have to be discovered. It is all too easy to see only the surface problems and never dig deeper to address the real issues.

Engineers and businesspeople are trained to solve problems. Designers are trained to discover the real problems. A brilliant solution to the wrong problem can be worse than no solution at all: solve the correct problem.

Good designers never start by trying to solve the problem given to them: they start by trying to understand what the real issues are. As a result, rather than converge upon a solution, they diverge, studying people and what they are trying to accomplish, generating idea after idea after idea. It drives managers crazy. Managers want to see progress: designers seem to be going backward when they are given a precise problem and instead of getting to work, they ignore it and generate new issues to consider, new directions to explore. And not just one, but many. What is going on?

Excerpted from ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ by Don Norman