“Stupid” Questions???
Have you ever heard the phrase, “There is no such thing as a stupid question.” Well, that’s wrong. There are stupid questions, many of them. The problem is we aren’t asking the stupid questions we need to, which can often lead to a new way of solving for the RIGHT problem as designers.
As Don Norman states in his book The Design of Everyday Things, “A stupid question asks about things so fundamental that everyone assumes the answer is obvious… Quite often the solution to problems is discovered through stupid questions, through questioning the obvious.”
"Quite often the solution to problems is discovered through stupid questions." ~ Don Norman
"Quite often the solution to problems is discovered through stupid questions."
~ Don Norman
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in a meeting and said to yourself (or aloud) “whew, I’m so glad they asked that.” Often times we assume something has to be a certain way because that’s the way it’s always been.
Coming from the world of business, I find myself trying to justify my product knowledge by not speaking up, so my teammates, prospects, and managers assume I know what I’m talking about. But that needs to change. It’s time to ask the “stupid” questions. The questions that challenge the way it’s always been. The questions that get to the Why behind the proposed problem, and then the Why behind that.
Photo taken from: https://www.hothousedesign.com.au/blog/ask-why-5-times