Scoping the Problem Bigger

April 17th, 2012

Tony Fadell explains what, in part, made Steve Jobs so good at finding the right solution to a problem:

At the time, Fadell simply said “Steve had a way of scoping the problem bigger. He could just look at a problem and find the solution by thinking larger.”

Sometimes, obstacles we run into while designing something are because we have our eyes so close to the ground, the detail blinds us to a larger truth. It’s useful all of the time, but especially when you can’t seem to figure out a design issue, to consider the greater intent of what you’re designing. What is it meant to do for the user? What is it ultimately doing for them? Answering that question, and thinking through the design problem within that context, often will make the answer immediately obvious.