When starting a new project, choosing the right problem statement is crucial for ensuring that your solution addresses a real need and creates value. A clear and focused problem statement provides direction, helping you navigate the design and development process. In this article, I’ll walk you through key factors to consider when choosing a problem statement. I’ll also share how I narrowed down five general problem statements to one, using these criteria.

1. Start with Empathy: Understand the Real Needs

To identify a meaningful problem, you must first understand the people who are affected by it. Empathy is the cornerstone of any user-centered approach. This requires going beyond surface-level assumptions and digging deep into the pain points, frustrations, and needs of your target audience.

• Conduct user research: Talk to users, observe their daily routines, and understand their challenges. Surveys, interviews, and focus groups can reveal insights that you may not have considered.

• Look for emotional triggers: Problems with an emotional undertone often lead to highly appreciated solutions because they tap into users’ core experiences.

Empathy ensures that your problem statement is based on actual user needs, not just assumptions.

2. Market Research: Identify Gaps and Opportunities

Before choosing a problem statement, it’s essential to understand the broader market landscape. Market research helps you identify existing solutions, gaps, and opportunities, ensuring that your problem is relevant and unique.

• Competitor analysis: Are there existing products or services attempting to solve this problem? If so, how effective are they? Researching competitors allows you to pinpoint what they are doing well and where they fall short.

• Unmet needs: Sometimes, existing solutions don’t fully address user needs or focus on a narrow aspect of the problem. Market research can reveal opportunities to offer a more comprehensive solution.

A well-researched problem statement should highlight a gap in the market or an opportunity to improve on current solutions.

3. User Research: Validate the Problem

After conducting market research, it’s time to validate the problem by directly engaging with your target audience. User research helps ensure that the problem you’re solving is real and relevant to the people you’re designing for.

• Engage with users: Reach out to potential users to validate your problem statement. Do they recognize the problem, and is it something they are eager to have solved? Validation helps confirm the authenticity of the problem and its urgency.

• Use case scenarios: Observe users in real-life scenarios to understand how the problem affects their daily routines. Sometimes users are not even aware of the problem until you show them how a solution could improve their experience.

I reached out to friends, family, and people from my college to understand their struggles with mental health, confirming that it was a pressing issue among them.

4. Focus on Relevance and Urgency

While empathy and research help you identify a meaningful problem, relevance and urgency ensure that it is a pressing issue. Ask yourself: Is this a problem that needs to be solved now, or is it something that can wait?

• Trends and timing: Analyze trends in the market and in society. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health became a more prominent issue. Look for opportunities where timing can accelerate the need for a solution.

• Impact and scale: Evaluate the potential impact of solving the problem. How many people would benefit from your solution? Choose problems that have a significant impact and can reach a broad audience.

5. Align with Your Personal or Organizational Values

Choosing a problem statement that aligns with your values or those of your organization can help ensure that you stay passionate and motivated throughout the project.

• Passion-driven projects: Working on a problem that resonates with you can lead to better motivation and persistence. For instance, if you’re passionate about mental health, you might choose a problem statement related to providing better support for stress management.

• Organizational mission: Ensure the problem aligns with your company’s mission or long-term goals. A strong alignment will likely result in more resources and buy-in from stakeholders.

6. Evaluate Feasibility: Can You Solve It?

While some problems may be enticing, they can be too complex to tackle with the resources available. Always consider feasibility before moving forward with a problem statement.

• Assess resources: Do you have the right tools, technology, and skills to tackle this problem? It’s essential to be realistic about what can be accomplished given your current resources.

• Time constraints: Consider how much time you can dedicate to solving the problem. If you’re working with tight deadlines, choosing a problem that requires long-term research may not be ideal.

• Scope control: Some problems are multi-faceted and may need to be broken down into more manageable sub-problems. Make sure the scope is reasonable given the time and resources at your disposal.

7. Scalability and Flexibility

Scalability is a key factor when choosing a problem to solve. A problem statement that allows for scalability can lead to a solution with long-term potential.

• Adaptability: While it’s important to solve an immediate problem, ensure your solution can adapt to future challenges or evolving needs. A scalable solution is one that can grow alongside changing user demands.

• Market size: How broad is the problem you’re trying to solve? A scalable problem is one that affects a wide audience, increasing the potential reach of your solution.

8. Create a Clear and Concise Problem Statement

Once you’ve gone through the earlier steps, the final step is to create a problem statement that is clear, concise, and actionable.

• Avoid vagueness: Be specific. A vague problem statement will result in scattered efforts and confusion. Define the problem in a way that can be easily understood and acted upon.

• Make it actionable: Your problem statement should lead to a solution that can be measured and evaluated. Avoid overly complex or theoretical problems.

Problem Statements I Considered:

1. Accessibility Issues in Public Transport Navigation for People with Disabilities: Many public transport systems are difficult to navigate for people with physical disabilities, especially in countries with limited infrastructure.

2. Overwhelming Stress and Mental Health Issues Among Working Professionals: The fast-paced work culture and pressure to perform often result in anxiety and burnout, with insufficient mental health support available in the workplace.

3. Lack of Educational Resources for Non-English Speaking Students: In many countries, students who do not speak English as their first language struggle to access quality educational materials and resources tailored to their learning needs.

4. Waste Management Problems in Urban Areas: With rapid urbanization, waste management in cities is becoming increasingly complex, leading to environmental hazards and health concerns.

5. Efficient Healthcare Platform with Centralized Patient History and ML-Assisted Disease Prediction: Current healthcare systems often lack streamlined access to patient histories, which can lead to inefficiencies in diagnosis and treatment. Leveraging machine learning to predict diseases based on centralized data can improve patient outcomes.

How I Chose the Final Problem Statement

After considering five general problem statements, I applied the criteria discussed earlier to arrive at my final choice:

Problem Statement: Efficient Healthcare Platform with Centralized Patient History and ML-Assisted Disease Prediction

The Problem:

In India’s healthcare system, fragmented patient records and inefficient access to medical history pose significant challenges. Patient data is often scattered across different hospitals, departments, or even maintained on paper, leading to:

• Delayed diagnoses: Doctors struggle to gather comprehensive patient histories during consultations.

• Increased likelihood of errors: Interpreting complex medical data, such as chest X-rays, leaves room for human error.

Doctors need a centralized, easy-to-access system to view patient histories in one place. Furthermore, the rising number of patients and complex diagnostic requirements have created a need for advanced tools like machine learning (ML) to support doctors in minimizing diagnostic errors and identifying diseases early.

The Solution:

I propose an Efficient Healthcare Platform that addresses these challenges by:

• Centralizing patient health records in one digital location, allowing doctors to quickly retrieve complete medical histories during consultations.

• Integrating an ML assistant that analyzes medical images (like chest X-rays) and patient histories to provide predictive insights and early warnings of potential diseases, helping doctors reduce human error and make more informed decisions.

By streamlining the process of accessing patient data and improving the accuracy of diagnoses, the platform enhances both the doctor’s workflow and the patient’s healthcare experience.

User Experience Focus:

• Simplifying Complex Data Access: The platform will improve the user experience for healthcare providers by centralizing patient data, reducing the time doctors spend on administrative tasks, and allowing them to focus on patient care.

• Improving Diagnostic Accuracy: The ML assistant will augment the doctor’s expertise, offering predictive insights that are easy to interpret, helping them avoid potential errors in disease diagnosis.

• Human-Centered Design: The design will cater to both doctors and patients, ensuring the platform is intuitive, with data presented in a clear, actionable format, minimizing learning curves for healthcare professionals.

• Visual Data Representation: Intuitive data visualization tools will help doctors quickly understand health trends and critical insights, particularly for interpreting X-rays and patient records.

Market Need:

The healthcare industry in India is rapidly growing, with increasing investments in health tech. Hospitals and clinics are looking for solutions to improve efficiency, reduce diagnostic errors, and optimize workflows. This platform can tap into these needs, offering hospitals a way to enhance patient care and minimize operational costs. The COVID-19 pandemic has also highlighted gaps in healthcare infrastructure, increasing the demand for technology that supports remote diagnostics and telemedicine.

By following a comprehensive approach to problem selection and utilizing both market and user research, I was able to confidently choose a problem statement that aligns with my values, is highly relevant, and presents an opportunity to make a significant impact in the healthcare industry.