Why not?
Are you willing to be constantly confronted by how “wrong” you are?
This question is extremely uncomfortable to answer. Most people avoid thinking about it entirely, but it is worth some attention, especially if you like a challenge.
The fear of being wrong is one of the greatest inhibitors of creativity and human potential. Still, we can uncover new possibilities if we are willing to take risks. It is a known fact that the best creative work and the most innovative ideas are rarely the results of copying what others have done. Instead, they are born from considering the unexpected that thrives in the liminal space between what works and what might not work, i.e., the boundary between right and wrong.
“Wrong,” in this case, is a feature of experimentation and design, not a bug. Being wrong shouldn't be some self-deconstructive activity that diminishes our achievements, efforts, and confidence. We can improve our critical thinking and the quality of our products even before the prototype phase by daring to ask a simple yet powerful question: "Why not?"
In this context, “why not?” is an invitation to consider what may be suboptimal in the features or the experience, urging us to settle for the current level only once we critically review the design and the performance. Challenge our design to gather critical feedback by asking ourselves and others: Why wouldn't the product work? Why wouldn't customers like it? What is missing? As a result, we create a negative space of evidence charged against your product that you no longer conveniently omit to take shortcuts. We stay uncomfortable with admitting the many ways we may be wrong.
"Only the inquiring mind solves problems." Edward Hodnett
At Owtcome, "why not" is our go-to tool to create a worst-case scenario because we believe it is the best way forward to unleash the power of experimentation as early as the ideas begin to shape as products. You can learn to preempt it and sharpen the value creation.
It's too late to wait to prototype to discover some hard truths.
Let's look at the advantages "why not?" can provide to your product development process:
#1 Why and why not are worlds apart.
The "why not?" technique may appear much like the "5 whys" problem-solving method from Toyota's lean philosophy, but the forces at play are very different. With "5 whys", you enter a problem-solving space that can lead to creative answers, but it isn't so simple to do because:
You must peel away layers of assumptions to get to the possible root cause of the problem.
You must choose the questions and answers carefully to discover the core problem.
You must use a narrow scope or oversimplify the context to avoid being overwhelmed with too many divergent routes.
When applying "why not?", you enter an emergent space that is different because:
You learn how to be the best critic of your own work.
You identify any possible blind spots, and instead of solving the problem, you create new problems by looking at the functionality, the quality, and the experience.
You look for direction, not a decision, to understand consequences and impact and how to balance the stakes.
You learn to uncover risks and be aware of the worst possible outcome.
#2 Reframe when experimentation is done.
Prototyping is a critical step in any successful product development process. You can assess the product performance before product release, allowing you to work with real user data and insights on how to improve it. The problem is that UX testing and UX research require careful preparation, time, and investment to get meaningful insights. And often, they are viewed as a technical capability deployed to validate assumptions, not discovering anything new.
But this approach puts prototyping in a very narrow and limiting position. Product teams must experiment consistently, especially at the early stages of the product design process. And, if the barrier to adoption is removed, the UX mentality can propagate more easily throughout the organization, making everyone committed to elevating value and impact.
Experimentation thrives best when it is an intricate part of the company culture and a core skill. Only when you keep an open mind and improve your critical thinking can you find more effective ways to improve the product experience. Using "why not?" at the early stages of product development will elevate your critical thinking and help you raise and keep the bar high.
"To revise means to see again; forward movement, new possibilities, beauty."
#3 "Why not?" is one step closer to now what.
Reopening the product design with "why not?" appears counter-intuitive when the focus should be on sharpening the focus to get to prototyping as fast as possible. The exercise may look like adding extra noise to the system instead of making the problem space as clear and defined as possible. But that is a temporary distress signal.
Think of "why not?" as adding unpredictable fluctuations that, when applied purposely, can lead to benefits. Adding variability is particularly useful for complex problems under a clear benchmark. For example, the benchmark is to answer the question, "why wouldn't the product work for the customer?".
"Randomness can positively affect signal-processing of non-linear systems."
In this context, "why not?" brings several benefits:
It's an early detector to ensure the robustness of the solution.
It adds more design serendipity to dig out real, invisible, and unknown deep-rooted pain points and needs.
It leads to a better understanding of the original problem that would be difficult otherwise.
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The questions we ask influence our worldview, what we see, and how we think and act. We need different questions to open the space for new ideas, imagination, and creativity.
Next time, try a different technique with your team to put your product to the test. Be the devil's advocate to provoke debate around the product value and test the strength of the opposing arguments. It will help you advance your ideas and build trust with your colleagues to reach a better solution to the problem at hand. So, why not?