Transform research insights into actionable problem statements that focus teams and inspire creative exploration.
Frame a focused Design Challenge using "How Might We" questions to align your team on the right problem before jumping into solutions.
A Design Challenge is a structured problem-framing activity that transforms research findings and business goals into focused, actionable questions teams can rally around. UX designers, product managers, and cross-functional teams use it to define the boundaries of a design problem before jumping into solutions. The most common format is the "How Might We" question, which frames the problem broadly enough to inspire creative exploration while being specific enough to provide direction. A well-crafted Design Challenge prevents teams from solving the wrong problem, a mistake that wastes far more time and resources than spending extra hours on problem framing. The process typically involves reviewing research insights, identifying key user needs and pain points, drafting multiple challenge statements at varying scope levels, and then selecting the one that best balances ambition with feasibility. By making the problem explicit and shared, the Design Challenge creates a reference point that keeps ideation, prototyping, and testing aligned with real user needs rather than assumptions or pet solutions.
Begin by identifying the design problem or area of improvement that you want the design team to focus on. This problem statement should be specific enough to guide the team, but broad enough to allow for creative exploration.
Bring together a diverse group of stakeholders, including designers, developers, product managers, or end-users, who can contribute to the design challenge. A diverse team helps surface a wide range of ideas, experiences, and perspectives.
As a group, define the objectives and limitations of the design challenge. These may include time constraints, budgetary restrictions, technical constraints or any other factors that could impact the design process.
Encourage the team members to brainstorm and generate as many ideas as possible to address the design challenge. Emphasize that there are no bad ideas during this stage and encourage participation from all team members.
After a set period of brainstorming, guide the team to evaluate and prioritize the ideas generated. Consider the goals, constraints, and the potential impact of each idea on the end-user experience. Narrow down the ideas to a manageable number for the next step.
With the top ideas selected, have the team develop detailed concepts for each idea. These concepts should include clear explanations, visualizations, and any other relevant details to help communicate the idea to others.
Create prototypes of the top concepts, using techniques like paper prototyping, wireframing or any other method that suits the complexity of the design challenge. These prototypes should provide an interactive experience that helps convey the concept to others.
Test the prototypes with end-users, stakeholders or other relevant individuals. Gather feedback on usability, desirability, and feasibility of each solution. Use this feedback to identify areas for improvement and make necessary iterations to the designs.
Once the team has refined and tested the prototypes, present the final design solution to stakeholders and decision-makers. Provide a detailed overview of the design process, including the steps taken and lessons learned, to help support the final design choice.
After running a Design Challenge session, your team will have a clearly articulated problem statement, typically in the form of one or more 'How Might We' questions, that everyone understands and agrees upon. This statement will serve as a north star throughout the subsequent ideation, prototyping, and testing phases. You will also have documentation of the research insights that informed the challenge, the alternative framings considered, and the rationale for the chosen direction. Team members will leave the session with a shared vocabulary for discussing the problem and clear criteria for evaluating whether proposed solutions actually address it. The challenge brief becomes a reusable artifact for onboarding new contributors and keeping stakeholders aligned.
Remember that the challenge should not be too broad (so that you know where to start solving it), but not too narrowly defined (so that it does not limit your creativity).
Give this stage enough time. Although you will feel like you are going in circles, getting the challenge right is crucial for the project.
Make sure you have formulated the challenge as a question, it will be easier for you to find possible solutions.
Frame challenges as 'How might we...' questions to open up solution space without presupposing answers.
Validate challenge framing with users before investing in solution ideation.
Create challenge variations at different scope levels to find the right abstraction.
Share the challenge with outsiders to check if it is clear without additional context.
Revisit and reframe the challenge if early ideation produces only obvious solutions.
An overly broad challenge like 'How might we improve the user experience?' provides no actionable direction. Narrow the scope to a specific user need, context, or outcome to focus ideation productively.
Writing 'How might we add a chatbot to help users?' prescribes the answer. Frame the challenge around the user need instead, such as 'How might we help users find answers instantly?'
Crafting a challenge based on assumptions rather than user research leads to solving imaginary problems. Ground every challenge statement in validated insights from interviews, analytics, or surveys.
The first challenge statement is rarely the best one. Generate multiple variations, test them with the team, and iterate before committing. Expect the framing to evolve through discussion.
Teams sometimes treat the initial challenge as permanent even when new information surfaces. Revisit and reframe the challenge if early ideation or testing reveals the problem was misunderstood.
Document with problem context, target users, goals, and constraints.
Summary of target users with demographics, behaviors, and preferences.
Key findings from user research and competitive analysis informing the challenge.
Collection of brainstormed ideas, concepts, sketches, and notes.
Evaluation of ideas against challenge criteria to identify top concepts.
Low or high-fidelity representations of selected concepts for testing.
Objectives, scenarios, metrics, and participant criteria for prototype testing.
Observations and findings from testing, identifying areas for improvement.
Revised prototypes incorporating usability test feedback and stakeholder input.
Detailed mockups, specifications, and guidelines for implementation.
Comprehensive document covering the full process from challenge to solution.