Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Sheel Damani

Deconstructing the jargon: Problem-solving.

When I was little, my dad gave me a piece of advice —

Always approach anything by breaking it down into as many tiny pieces as possible. Solving tiny bits will make it easy to see the bigger picture.

Back then my problems were mostly math related. Three complex sentences to derive equations was a BIG problem. Now that I have more than x and y to solve, his words come in even more handy.

Communication problems (for a company) are likewise. Invisible, at times. Poking people to take some urgent measures, unclear of what exactly. This is why most people at the top shake up their marketing teams to make something fast, and “fix it.”

Spend on marketing. Get returns. Maybe.

Invest in communication.
Connect (with) people. Make relationships. Build a brand.

There’s a world of a difference in the two. The first one is like setting up a bait for fishing. The second is seeing your user as a real person and making a conversation. At the cost of being repetitive — it is people who make or break a brand. You just have to break the problem down. Let’s take a quick look.

I know you are tempted to solve the Math problem but hang on. We’ll come to it.

After meeting the Architect and his core team, my first problem was to define a clear project brief. I always summarise long meetings into notes to see if everyone perceives the problem alike — Situation Analysis.

Dated: 14.04.2015

Situation Analysis
Vitan has a portfolio of 200+ projects built over 27 years. Their work stands for simple, thoughtful and sustainable design that ensures welfare of all stakeholders. From the inhabitants to the makers/workers. Everyone influences the design to maximise usability, efficient use of resources, energy and materials.

Innovative attention to detail is Vitan’s forte — whether it is concealing an AC duct or adding a compound wall. Aesthetics is only a result of functionality. Each project has a unique story with a specific solution.

However, the volume of work needs to be shown with brevity and impact. Hence, the company wants one story connecting its projects and people.

Initial project brief was about revamping the website based on 210 slides.

The core team comes together to find focused answers for all the possible questions and pain points —

What should your brand be known for? How should people see you? How do they see you currently?

Who are your clients? What kind of clients would you like to work with? Why should they partner with you?

Who are your competitors? Does your team share the same goals as the top management? Does your team know and relate to how you wish to shape up the company?

Any problem you face while dealing with clients? What is your engagement terms and process?

A clip from the first session with the team at Vitan Architects (now Jagrut & Partners).

We took two weeks to develop possible approaches they can take. This happened over deep dive, stakeholder and competition analysis narrowed down with some rough cut story samples. The concept evolved over the entire span of the project to reach a product everyone finds value in.

So what’s the take home technique?

Everytime you are given a problem, paraphrase it to see whether it fits what is needed to be done or not. Here’s how I approach it —

For all Math enthusiasts

Captured is the concert solution below. Solve it before scrolling down or give up and reminisce what we did as kids 🙂

Let’s see if you can solve for ‘a’ and ‘c’

Cost of Total Tickets 5a +8c = 1730
Num(Children) at the concert 4a + 10 = c

Boo-yah! No spoon fed stuff. If your Math gut is calling out to you, share answers below in the comments.

Hopefully this piece helped you see how breaking down a problem makes the effort collaborative and transparent. I’m sure there are more ways. If you have an approach you’d like to share, please add it in the comments too.

<a href="https://medium.com/media/b85dfbb5286d8a25cf2e754b9462cf45/href">https://medium.com/media/b85dfbb5286d8a25cf2e754b9462cf45/href</a>

Break it down. was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Break it down.

Cool stuff, every week

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