The New "How Might We" Question
Meta-Design with Researchers and Designers is Co-Design, and that "Co"-Design is just Design.
As clearly evidenced by several key performance indicators (KPIs), such as subscription rates and page views, our actual versus projected engagement metrics are far above schedule due to the marketing campaign we conducted last week. We will be able to speak to the numbers and dive deeper into this campaign in our next publication.
To increase accessibility to this information and transmute it so it is more digestible for the academic, we’ve converted this slide deck into a PowerPoint, as well.
Given the influx of new visitors, and as it has been a while since we offered something more actionable, this publication outlines our project.
Summary
Our entire project hinges upon what has become one primary “How Might We” question and one subsequent secondary “How Might We” question, when updating industry (UX/UI/Service Design) frameworks beyond profit maximization and the human.
As we track how our problems have evolved, we also show how we are caught between two worlds. We adapt speculative design principles (in a manner we probably should not) to tease out our ambitions. We present a new “How Might We…If…” question. This will allow us to retain the actionability and elegance of the “How Might We” question while motivating design beyond the status quo.
We anticipate further evolution of our “How Might We” questions in coming publications, but for new users, this publication positions sums up a lot of our mess-making so far and well positions us for future developments.
Background
Industry frameworks, historically built on human-centered values, feel outdated yet rife with potential.
As we see it, there are very few mechanisms that truly capture collective feelings, needs, and problems more greatly than these frameworks. Sociocracy doesn’t scale, and voting operates on a pretense of choice and representation, while in reality offering a false dichotomy and leading to great sacrifice all around.
We see the potential in human-centered research and design frameworks, but we also care about so much more than just ourselves (humans and excessive wealth accumulation for an even smaller subset of humans).
There are limits, and we are often left wondering how far we can push these frameworks while still being loyal to the values. Feelings, pains, and senses are often said to “make us human.” These facets are not uniquely human, but they give our lives shape and meaning.
All of these publications are dedicated to redesigning research and design. This publication, specifically, will outline the direction of our work.
“How Might We…”
As users of human-centered research and design frameworks, we can draw upon “How Might We” questions to develop a common understanding and frame our problem space.
Primary “How Might We” #1
At the onset of this project, our rough problem space was the following:
In light of Tech’s expanding influence and hyper-prioritization of profit, industry (UX, UI, Service Design) researchers and designers working within Tech recognize their responsibility to the collective good. Our notion of “collective good” has expanded in recent years across fields to include more than just humans, such as the environment and animals.
Busy industry researchers and designers who are motivated to do good need actionable ways to contribute to our expanded understanding of the “collective good” because their environment (the Business) disincentivizes this work.
While not only applicable to researchers and designers under Businesses, these individuals emerge as some of our users with the most needs.
Primary How Might We #1:
How might we create actionable, flexible, and simple tools and frameworks for busy researchers and designers under organizations driven purely by profit maximization to advance our expanded understanding of the collective good, including humans and beyond?
At this early stage, we did not have rigorous success or acceptance criteria, but we affinity mapped some sentiments around the core terms to ensure we had a shared understanding:
“Tools and frameworks:” structured methods, modes of thinking that motivate research and design, not applications.
“Actionable:” clear, reduce ambiguity, drive and motivate research and design (i.e. capture problem space/scope, facilitate ideation, etc.)—set researchers and designers towards developing a solution.
“Flexible:” open enough to allow for use across fields and areas of work, broad enough to be repurposed depending on need.
“Simple:” easy to use, allows researchers and designers to conceptualize and hold all of these pieces outside of the end user without being overwhelmed.
“Busy:” overworked, small teams, limited bandwidth, required to meet deadlines and expectations of the Business.
“Organizations driven purely by profit:” Business, bottom line inherent to the structure.
“Expanded understanding of the collective good:” doing good (vague?), humans and beyond (other beings) by designing from and with them.
“How Might We…If…”
It was through this frame that we began to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of existing tools and frameworks that fell within the intersection of our problem space.
During this stage of discovery, we encountered a range of rudimentary tools for tackling this work from our contributors. Some of these tools felt more expansive, such as the Actant Mapping Canvas or Tactical Mapping, but they also seemed to introduce too much complexity without meaningfully motivating design.
There is nothing inherently wrong with these tools as we understand them, and we always encourage multiplicities.
More often though, the tools we encountered were built from sameness. With smaller iterations to existing tools, these gained greater traction, and researchers and designers seemed enthusiastic about their potential for motivating design, such is the case with Non-Human Personas. These tools seemed to take complex beings that we often have a hard time reading accurately and put them into our predefined boxes for humans. Key principles that guide industry frameworks, such as lead with empathy, were also carried forward to more than humans, and empathy relies on a sameness that seems difficult to translate in the expansion.
A tension began to arise in the work we were confronted with.
For us, it became a moment of being caught between two worlds. While we believe in centering and leading research and design from lived experience rooted in real needs, we also felt the pull to transform our solutions into something greater. Something not born out of more than just need or captured through user research; in this case, something that would allow us to open ourselves up to other beings and receive as much of them as possible—the very nature of what we strive for in human-centered research and design.
In many ways, the direction felt more true to our work as researchers and designers.
We turned to speculative design, which seems to grapple with the spirit of this venture. Speculative design, although often not applied to industry frameworks, as it tries to decouple itself from capitalism and aims to stir up more questions than solutions, is an area of design that uses critical theory to interrogate potential futures. Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby are the pioneers of this field; to more fully grasp the aims of speculative design, they employ an A/B exercise to tease out how speculative design differs from more established design principles.
It was through their work that we explored one of their potential thought experiments for motivating speculative design. Dunne and Raby introduced “What-Ifs,” which allows [creators] to strip…down to basics in order to explore an idea.”1 It is exactly what it sounds like: it is a question framed as a “What if…” to explore how the world might look in a particular context. Using this as a starting point, we repurposed the “What If” to “If” and affixed it to the “How Might We” question. “How Might We…If…” questions will retain the actionability and simplicity cooked into the question while pushing design in a new direction.
Potential expansion: How might we + __do what__ + for + __for whom__ + in order to + ___benefit, gain, result__ + if + __speculation__?
This allows us to open up possibilities for design, centering needs and pains while turning towards other possible futures. It makes speculative design more actionable, and human-centered research and design potentially more value-based.
At the same time, we do have grievances with certain aspects of the expansion. While we admire what it is after, and for now, it feels doable, it is also bloated and complex. The “speculation” piece is precarious and will require more space and time to sketch out; our intuition leads us to believe it will be better filled in as we fill in an ethics, something we have been gesturing to since the beginning of these publications.
For this rough cut, we pose: How might we more succinctly express the traditional insight while imagining a better world? How might we express both parts with equal force without either part losing its potency, feeling like it’s tacked on?
Primary How Might We #1.1
From this expansion, we get the following:
Primary How Might We #1.1:
How might we create actionable, flexible, and simple tools and frameworks for researchers and designers to support a range of beings (i.e. humans and beyond) if we sought to not be reliant upon sameness (i.e. empathy and fitting complex beings into boxes for humans)?
In the interest of brevity, we did untangle certain aspects of the “How Might We…If…” question that seemed better suited as a separate but related and vital pursuit.
Primary versus Secondary Statements/Questions
Although not traditionally used, there may be value in separating certain facets of research and design while still holding both statements as equally important. At least in our work, there is a necessity to develop the primacy of our project, and while form is separate from style in this case, it cannot be ignored.
Potential expansion: Primary Statements/Questions versus Secondary Statements/Questions
As we define them, primary problem statements/questions present our main problems to be solved. Secondary problem statements/questions also present problems to be solved, as long as the primary personas are not compromised. The two statements are inextricably tied. The core that needs to be solved is the primary, but its primacy and existence are wholly reliant on accommodating the secondary problem statements without sullying the primary with its demands.
Secondary How Might We #2
To accommodate some of the changes made to Primary How Might We #1.1, we developed:
Secondary How Might We #2:
How might we present findings and outcomes to executives to appeal to the prioritization of profit maximization if we intend not to betray our expanded understanding of the collective good? (not as sharp, reorder?2)
This is a matter of style and should be conceived of as separate from content. As was framed in a previous publication, the value proposition of UX/UI/Service Design was rather pure; however, they aligned themselves with something more malign, a simple platitude (“If the customer is satisfied, you will sell more products.”) to grow. In tech, Don Norman and Stephen Draper also seemed to rely upon the virtue of “making interfaces more user-friendly” to get more products into consumers' hands.
This should not ultimately alter or dissuade us from the commitment to the collective good, but it is a matter that must be acknowledged and dealt with for adoption across industry.
Evolution
While very broad, our “How Might We…If…” questions, for now, serve as useful framing tools for understanding our project. They are likely too broad to pursue in their current state and will continue to be whittled down and multiplied; this is also where we invite you, as always, to push back and push us forward—build with us.
Together, we hold:
Primary How Might We #1.1:
How might we create actionable, flexible, and simple tools and frameworks for researchers and designers to support a range of beings if we sought to not be reliant upon sameness in the form of empathy and fitting complex beings into boxes for humans?
Secondary How Might We #2:
How might we present findings and outcomes to executives to appeal to the prioritization of profit maximization if we intend not to betray our expanded understanding of the collective good?
That’s all our project is about, really.
Cite this publication
APA
MIdST LABS. (2025, June 18). The New “How Might We” Question. MIdST LABS. https://midstlabs.substack.com/the-new-how-might-we-question
Chicago
MIdST LABS. "The New ‘How Might We’ Question." MIdST LABS, June 18, 2025. https://midstlabs.substack.com/the-new-how-might-we-question
MLA
MIdST LABS. "The New ‘How Might We’ Question." MIdST LABS, 18 June 2025. https://midstlabs.substack.com/the-new-how-might-we-question
Dunne, A., Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge: MIT Press.
This feels less potent; is it less potent? The “if” isn’t quite as sticky in this one. This is the tension in the “if + ___” addition. It can be perceived as optional.
We invite you to share your insights and further develop these ideas, especially to meet your contextual needs; we value multiplicities, context, and nuance. Your feedback is a valuable part of this project, and we are excited to collaborate with you.
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