Moon Creative Lab Favicon

Moon Creative Lab

Join Moon’s one week, in-person, business-building Make-a-Thon in Tokyo.

Explore Moon’s Tokyo-based foundation-building program, Learning Labs.

Learn

Explore Moon’s Tokyo–based incubation program, Boost.

Explore Moon’s Palo Alto–based incubation program, In–Residence.

Build

Grow

/grow

Connect

/connect

About

large_image1_331fcbb1db.png

medium_image1_331fcbb1db.png

small_image1_331fcbb1db.png

thumbnail_image1_331fcbb1db.png

image1_331fcbb1db.png

Problem definition is the first step in creating a business. At Moon Creative Lab, we emphasize the importance of first delving into problem definitions from multiple angles. In the business incubation process, it is only after a problem is defined that a vision or concept can be created.In this article, we introduce essential tips that can be applied to problem definition and user-research preparation. Table of Contents<ul><li>Four essential tips in problem definition&nbsp;</li><li>Tennis Bear as an example&nbsp;</li><li>Necessary rules in brainstorming</li><li>How to check your bias&nbsp;</li><li>Preparation for user research&nbsp;</li></ul><hr><h3>Four essential tips in problem definition</h3>Defining a problem is the first step needed before creating a project vision or concept. It is necessary to consider various factors such as what are the users' problems, who are the people in need and whether there are competitors.There are four points we analyze at Moon to help us define the problem we are looking to solve.&nbsp;①&nbsp;Pain Points + AspirationsTo make problem definitions more concrete, we need to know the challenges people are facing. We try to identify the problem by answering the following questions:What needs currently exist? &nbsp; What are the unfulfilled needs? Are there any needs that people aren't aware of?&nbsp; ②&nbsp;Problem Scale + Opportunity&nbsp;Analyzing the problem with statistics and other data can help better understand the scale and severity of needs. The results of further investigation can help provide hints for identifying solutions. If there is no data found, we can conduct simple research such as interviews to help identify the specific solutions needed. &nbsp;③&nbsp;User ExplorationIdentify ideas that could have potential solutions and start thinking about the end users.&nbsp;Identifying both the users and related stakeholders can help better understand the overall structure of the business. It is important to identify all stakeholders as clearly as possible and visualize them on a map. <img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/_ff3826e98e.jpg" alt="ユーザーエクスプロレーション.jpg">④ Can We Test?We need to understand the current market and user behavior, confirm how they are currently dealing with problems, what competitive services are available, whether they can be solved with existing services, etc., and examine whether new solutions are needed.<h3>Tennis Bear as an example</h3><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/Tennis_Bear_9bafde6d4d_5dc583f819.jpeg" alt="Tennis_Bear_9bafde6d4d.jpeg">Let's look at <a href="https://www.mooncreativelab.com/ja/ventures/tennis-bear">Tennis Bear</a> which is part of Moon's venture portfolio. Tennis Bear is a digital sports platform that brings recreational players together in Japan that allows users to search and make reservations at local tennis courts. Tennis Bear also allows users to search for players of the similar level as themselves.&nbsp; Below we apply the four essential tips in problem definition for Tennis Bear.&nbsp;① Pain Points + Aspiration.&nbsp; Before there was no way to check court availability online. Finding players at a similar skill level was a struggle among tennis players and these factors became important insights in finding what was needed as a service.② Problem Scale + Opportunity.&nbsp; The team identified the size of the tennis population, the number of courts, how many players are having troubles finding other players and how serious it is for users who love tennis.③ User Exploration.&nbsp; The Tennis Bear team examined various user scenarios such as experienced or inexperienced players, whether they play at a tennis club or whether they are tennis court owners or instructors.④ Can We Test?&nbsp; Tennis Bear searched for an online website that allowed users to check courts’ reservation status. What they found was that there was no service to make a reservation by searching for the availability of tennis courts. Based on this finding the team developed a function that allows users to search and reserve courts all at once.&nbsp; After the service was launched, Tennis Bear realized users were having a hard time finding training partners of a similar level. The team then added a function that allowed users to search for players of a similar level.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/_be63be5dbe.jpg" alt="ポストイットはる.jpg"><figcaption>Brainstorming session using Post-its</figcaption></figure><h3> Necessary rules in brainstorming</h3>Quantity Over Quality&nbsp;Before starting a discussion on your initial problem space, realize this is just the starting point. A single idea often leads to many more ideas in a brainstorming session. The best brainstorming sessions thrive when they are open discussions valuing any and all ideas, and opinions. Remember that quantity is encouraged over quality here!&nbsp;Don't Judge Ideas Right AwayYou might want to judge some of the ideas shared right away which is natural. It's important to have an open mind and consider various possibilities without jumping to conclusions.&nbsp;Steps for a successful brainstorming session.<ol><li>At first, try to come up with ideas by yourself&nbsp;</li><li>Share and discuss ideas with others&nbsp;</li><li>Group similar ideas together &nbsp;</li><li>Vote and pick ideas to prioritize&nbsp;</li></ol>Prioritization can be discussed and decided over time but voting is more effective especially when time is limited.&nbsp;After identifying your problem definition and running a proper brainstorm you'll next need to identify any biases.&nbsp;<h3>How to check your bias</h3>Doing a bias check after sharing honest opinions during a brainstorm session is important to make sure you have seen all perspectives of an idea (not just your own).&nbsp;After the brainstorming session you'll want to separate the hypotheses from the questions. Hypotheses are statements that seem to be true about the ideas where as questions ask whether there is prejudice or risk against that hypothesis.<img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/_dd80ad9d12.jpg" alt="バイアスチェック.jpg">By analyzing the hypotheses and questions you are able to identify speculation and potential risks. Often times if you are unsure about a hypothesis you will need to consider more research or asking an expert. &nbsp;<h3>Research Preparation</h3><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/Design_research_thumbnail_7d739434e4.jpg" alt="Design research thumbnail.jpg">After narrowing our focus through the bias check process the next step is preparing for research. There are two items that are required in order to proceed: a strong vision and a game plan.&nbsp;Clarifying the vision plays a big role in deepening the shared goal and solutions among project members. Think about what needs to be shared to properly communicate your idea to others. Some questions you might ask include:What kind of influence would this create on people, and on whom? What kind of world do you want to create?&nbsp; What is the motivation?&nbsp; What are the barriers?&nbsp;Next, you'll want to develop a game plan which outlines the research plan and concept design. Start by identifying these questions:&nbsp;Who should we talk to?&nbsp; What are the risks?&nbsp; How serious is each risk?&nbsp;Based on the content identified through the brainstorming, we can easily answer these questions with confidence to create a shared vision among team members and develop a game plan.&nbsp;<h3>Next steps after Problem Definition&nbsp;</h3>Moon's incubation process moves from problem definition is just the first step to building a business idea. The next steps include clarification of vision, concept design, user research, prototyping, and product launch.This process is based on the design research methodology. Be sure to learn about the next steps here on Moon Stories!

large_DSCF6947.jpg

medium_DSCF6947.jpg

small_DSCF6947.jpg

thumbnail_DSCF6947.jpg

Problem Definition 

We recently spoke with two Moon Creative Lab Design Researchers about the purpose and methodologies of design research.<figure class="image"><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/L1500386_d3171a2cf7.jpg" alt="L1500386.jpg"><figcaption>Takuya Yamagishi has previous experience working in advertising strategy planning, brand concept development, and user research at an advertising agency. To learn more about the human-centered approach, he studied design research and service design at the Goldsmiths University of London and Hyper Island Design School.</figcaption></figure><figure class="image"><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/Copy_of_L1500394_636d2a5024.jpg" alt="Copy of L1500394.jpg"><figcaption>Yui Aiyama studied design research at Stanford University d.school. At Moon Creative Lab, she is responsible for design research on ventures as well as developing a design research learning program.</figcaption></figure>Key Learnings<ol><li>What is design research?&nbsp;</li><li>What is the purpose of design research?</li><li>How does design research differ from market research?&nbsp;</li><li>Design research methodology&nbsp;</li><li>The role of the design researcher&nbsp;</li></ol><h2>1.What is design research?</h2>The term ‘design research’ is very broad but the easiest way to explain it would be “the research you do to design.” We often use this method to get clues when we are unsure of what kind of product we need to create.For example, if a Japanese company wants to sell refrigerators in Japan it might be easy to imagine the users and their needs. It should be easy to add features to existing products. However, if you want to sell the products overseas you need to better understand the cultural background of the country you’re trying to sell to such as the usage and value people see in refrigerators before designing a new product.The difference between domestic and overseas is just one example of differences in designing products. Without prior design research to design a product we wouldn’t have known how to meet specific user needs in an unknown area.<h2>2.What is the purpose of design research?</h2>One of the main goals of design research is to uncover users' hidden needs. Design research is a method for exploring users' needs in great detail and clarifying their unexpressed needs.By embracing one of Moon's values, ‘be human-centered’ this means we design products from the user's perspective. Through the design research process described below, we help our ventures to understand the challenges users face and develop an idea of what the users really need rather than designing for what we think they might need.&nbsp;<h2>3.How does design research differ from market research?</h2>Market research often uses quantitative and objective research data to analyze and verify hypotheses that are already established. This is different from design research because we focus on qualitative data and personal experiences. Approaching real users gives us a chance to create designs we may never have seen before.&nbsp;An example of a market research approach could be you want to give someone a gift so you search online; ‘10 best gifts for women in their 30s’. You identify a gift from the list that is within your budget and you give them something from that list.&nbsp;In design research, we would carefully observe the kind of person they are by looking into finer details such as what kind of books they usually read or what their daily routine might be. We would then make a hypothesis of what gift they would appreciate in order to pick the best present.<h2>4.Design research methodology</h2><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/_cffce98910.jpg" alt="名称未設定.jpg">The incubation process at Moon involves these four major steps:&nbsp;<ol><li>Concept definition&nbsp;</li><li>Develop MVP (Minimal Viable Product)&nbsp;</li><li>Product launch&nbsp;</li><li>Due diligence&nbsp;</li></ol>Each step will take approximately 3-4 months to research and validate the hypothesis. After 12 months, at due diligence, the progress will be assessed carefully by reviewing things such as investment value and existing risks. Due diligence is an important step to get the venture ready to become an independent company and eventually graduate Moon.At Moon, we put emphasis on the initial concept definition and vision session that takes place during this stage.<h3>What is a vision session for concept definition?</h3>Concept definition is the process of deciding what kind of product to develop for a specific problem. The first step in the concept definition is a vision session.The vision session is the process of verbalizing the purpose of the product. It is conducted in the early stages of the project to develop a common understanding between project leaders and team members.In this process we identify potential users, visualize the issues they’re facing, map out the stakeholders around them and identify questions from each process.<ol><li>Map out pain points (identify issues)&nbsp;</li><li>User exploration (list the potential users)&nbsp;</li><li>Map out stakeholders (clarify the relationships)&nbsp;</li><li>Map out questions (identify questions)&nbsp;</li><li>Bias check (identify the preconceptions)&nbsp;</li><li>Name-storming (pick a product name)&nbsp;</li></ol>After conducting various types of brainstorming sessions we conduct bias checks and try to clarify our users and the product image. Name-storming is done as a preliminary step before moving on to research and testing.Name-storming is the process of giving a name to a product. This is also a good time to register a trademark since there will be more opportunities to use a product name to communicate with users, create websites and other places where a product name is important.Through these processes we move on to collecting user feedback, feasibility studies, minimum viable product (MVP) validation, and then to product launch.<h3>User research in concept definition and product development stage</h3>In the early user research stage, we conduct bias checks by identifying users, issues, and questions from various perspectives in order to look for the most important question that reveals the core of the project.&nbsp;The research will be repeated several times if necessary, and the answers to the questions will be set as defined concepts. Then, research will be conducted again to validate the concept and the MVP that is developed based on the concept, to verify that the concept and the MVP are in line with user needs.&nbsp;Three common user research methods&nbsp;<ol><li>In-depth interview (one-on-one interview)&nbsp;</li><li>Observation (observe users’ behavior)&nbsp;</li><li>Home visit&nbsp;</li></ol>In in-depth interviews, we ask users one-on-one questions as we observe their responses and reactions. For observation and a home visit, we observe specific behaviors and routines of users.For example, in the observation research, we ask our users to actually use the coffee machine and observe the operating procedures in order to develop a coffee-related product. Even after a product is launched, we continue to observe our users.In the home visit research, we visit users’ homes and see their private space, and sometimes we can reveal issues and needs that even users are not aware of.In design research, we clarify the concept in a vision session, select the best user research methods, verify the concept by using prototypes, and assess the scalability of the product based on the results.<h2>5. What is the role of the design researcher?</h2><figure class="image"><img src="https://moon-website-prod-images.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/L1500432_1_1e57c9217d.jpg" alt="L1500432 (1).jpg"><figcaption>Moon Creative Lab’s design researchers Yui Aiyama (left) and Takuya Yamagishi (right)</figcaption></figure>A design researcher is an expert who conducts research to find out and create what users really want. This role is often performed by a management member or someone around them, but it does make sense to have a dedicated person to get things out from the user's perspective.Moon Creative Lab's design researchers describe their role this way.&nbsp;Takuya: It is not rare for startup companies not to have a design researcher. One of the most common reasons for startups not doing well is "there was no need for the product.” Design researchers always put the user at the center of their thinking process, conduct purposeful research, and objectively analyze the results to support successful product development that fits the user's needs and challenges. If a project seems to be going in a direction that does not meet the needs or challenges of the users, we may suggest pivoting.Yui: Pivoting means changing strategies and methods without changing the purpose of the service. In order to pivot effectively, it is important to (1) have a clear purpose and (2) not to be obsessed with one method. We as researchers help idea owners and teams verbalize their vision to clarify their objectives. At Moon, we hold a vision session with the project team when we launch a new business to define the service’s direction and to make sure all the members share a common understanding.&nbsp;&nbsp;Recommended Related Articles・<a href="https://www.mooncreativelab.com/stories/inclusive-design">Inclusive Design: Building With Everyone in Mind</a>・<a href="https://www.mooncreativelab.com/stories/prototypes">Low-Fi Prototypes for High-Tech Solutions</a>・<a href="https://www.mooncreativelab.com/stories/analogous-research">Learning From Analogous Research</a>

The True Value of Field Research

Problem Definition When Starting a Business

Why Design Research Is Important in Building a Startup

Join the Moon Community!

design research - Moon Stories Blog

The True Value of Field Research

Problem Definition When Starting a Business

Why Design Research Is Important in Building a Startup

Join the Moon Community!