A good guidance on "How Might We Questions"

When & why to use

“How might we” (HMW) questions are a tool developed at d.school to use while ideating. Ideally, you’ve already defined themes and insights, identified problem areas and synthesized your findings into a design challenge. Now you can use HMW questions to reframe your insight statements. The best thing about these kind of questions are they suggest that a solution is possible because they offer you the chace to answer them in a variety of ways while not suggesting a particular solution.

Ideate_Design Thinking.png
 

How to use

Formulating HMW questions that are specific enough is a challenge for itself. Something like “How might we redesign our website?” is too generic and won’t be proper guidance. D.School offers some interesting angles to perfectly frame your HMW questions, check out the guide here. I like the: 

  • Explore the opposite (Meaning make the most annoying part the most exciting part)

  • Create an analogy (Look for cross-industry inspiration)

  • Question an assumption (Truth be told, there are hardly any things that cannot be changed)

Another exciting approach I found is the randomized one (Original source here). In this article, the author suggests to randomly combine user needs, business drivers, and market opportunities into a single HMW statement. Often, a little randomness leads to the sought after creative breakthroughs. 

Summing up

  • HMW questions are the perfect frame for innovative thinking

  • When framing HMW questions, orient yourself at d.schools recommendations (Original Source below) like go after adjectives or focus on changing a status quo

  • You might even succeed in a randomized approach to combine all things needed into a well-framed HMQ question

ToolsLina RohrbachIdeation, How might we, Brainstorming