Why do you use it?

A good design problem definition achieves three things. First, it's a simple summary of the challenge that anyone could understand. Second, it captures your key insights from the discovery phase.. And third, it acts as an effective launchpad when you move into the next stage, which is to come up with creative ideas for solving your problem.

When to use it:

After the empathy and research part of a design process, it's time to use the new insights you've generated to land on a new and improved definition of your design challenge. This 'define' stage is where the Problem Definition Canvas can help you.

How to use it:

This canvas offers you space to take an iterative approach to defining or reframing your design challenge using point of view statements and 'How might we' questions - or to capture multiple statements and questions that refer to different users.

Starting on the left side of the Problem Definition Canvas, have a go at writing a point of view statement to define the problem you're trying to solve from the perspective of your key user or customer. A point of view statement includes your user, their core need, and your key insight about them. Who's the key user you're designing for? What's their core need that emerged from the discovery process? And what's your key insight about why they have that need, what they're trying to achieve, or how a solution would need to work?

Once you've tried out a few versions of your point of view statement(s), use the right hand side of the canvas to flip each statement into a 'How might we' question. This means you need to reframe each statement as a question with the words 'How might we' at the start. These questions will become the anchor for your creative ideation process.