{"id":611,"date":"2008-08-21T09:20:15","date_gmt":"2008-08-21T14:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/?p=611"},"modified":"2008-08-22T08:54:50","modified_gmt":"2008-08-22T13:54:50","slug":"ask-what-if-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josh.ev9.org\/weblog\/archives\/611","title":{"rendered":"Ask “What if” Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

What if we could travel 5 miles in less than 5 minutes?<\/p>\n

What if we could watch movies in our own homes?<\/p>\n

What if we could buy things for a whole day without using any paper money?<\/p>\n

What if we could communicate with friends on the other side of the world without leaving the house?<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

I hope you noticed that, in fact, we can<\/em> do all these things today. However, a mere 100 years ago, these questions would have been dismissed as pipe dreams by most people. But dreamers dream, designers design, technologists build, and before you know it, really difficult problems find solutions.<\/p>\n

This is why I try to take the long view when thinking about design problems. Today’s technology is ephemeral, it will be gone before you know it. But when you find solutions to the big problems, those interactions can last for centuries. So the next time you start a project, instead of asking, “What would the UI look like to solve this problem?” (or even worse, “What will the architecture of the software look like?”) ask “What if we could ________?” And fill in the blank with a really challenging problem.<\/p>\n

After all, if you’re like me, you didn’t get into technology to solve tiny little problems. You got into technology to make lives better & jobs easier. You got into technology because there are challenging problems to be solved. What if you solved them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What if we could travel 5 miles in less than 5 minutes? What if we could watch movies in our own homes? What if we could buy things for a whole day without using any paper money? What if we could communicate with friends on the other side of the world without leaving the house? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17,21,10,12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agile-development","category-design","category-professional","category-rambling","category-technology","category-thoughtworks"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t