Quotes About Problem-solving

The dumbest mistake is viewing design as something you do at the end of the process to 'tidy up' the mess, as opposed to understanding it's a 'day one' issue and part of everything.

The school at which you studied - design school, disruptive school, TRIZ school, user-centered innovation school, etc - determines the specific words you use.

When we think about what might go wrong, we're more likely to design something that goes right.

Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness? Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?

Innovation is about practical creativity - it's about making new ideas useful...

It is better to solve one problem five different ways, than to solve five problems one way.

Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, it's hard to eat spaghetti.

It's strange how few of the world's great problems are solved by people who remember their algebra.

I don't make excuses if I play bad. I just try to find a way to deal with it. I learned that from my family, to deal with your problems and still be good at what you do.

A Rube Goldberg machine is, in its essence, a trial-and-error thing.

The word 'hackathon' was born out of 'marathon' for a reason. It's exhausting.

Actually, everyone in India does some jugaad in their lives, whether in school, college, marriages, work etc. And most of us have different jugaads for different situations.

When people are anxious they tend to narrow their thought processes, concentration upon aspects directly relevant to a problem. This is a useful strategy in escaping from danger, but not in thinking of imaginative new approaches to a problem.

It is amazing how often people solve the problem before them without bothering to question it.

Engineers and businesspeople are trained to solve problems. Designers are trained to discover the real problems. A brilliant solution to the wrong problem can be worse than no solution at all: solve the correct problem.

The next time you can't immediately figure out the shower control in a hotel room or have trouble using an unfamiliar television set or kitchen appliance, remember that the problem is in the design. Ask yourself where the problem lies.

Emotions, we now know, change the way the human mind solves problems—the emotional system changes how the cognitive system operates. So, if aesthetics would change our emotional state, that would explain the mystery.

We have long known that when people are anxious they tend to narrow their thought processes, concentrating upon aspects directly relevant to a problem. This is a useful strategy in escaping from danger, but not in thinking of imaginative new approaches to a problem.

attractive things make people feel good, which in turn makes them think more creatively. How does that make something easier to use? Simple, by making it easier for people to find solutions to the problems they encounter.

Ask "Why?" as many times as may be necessary to get to the root cause of the problem and then fix it so it can never occur again.

Designers need to focus their attention on the cases where things go wrong, not just on when things work as planned.

My approach is completely different. I approach complicated problems such as how to provide health care for most Americans at a price we can afford the same way I solve the toughest business problems. We should hire the most knowledgeable people in the world on this subject and lock them in a room—and not unlock the door until they've agreed on the steps we need to take.

Direct calls to action can be included at the end of every e-mail blast, on signage, in our radio ads, and even in our television commercials. Consider including direct calls to action in every team member's e-mail signature, and if you really want to get the point across, on all your business cards. The idea is to make it very clear what we'd like customers to do: to make a purchase so we can help them solve their problem.