Designing a system you know nothing about

I find myself coming back to Paul Graham’s article about how to come up with ideas for startups. As a result, my rule for personal projects at the moment is to work on something I have experience in, or a problem I’ve faced personally and want to solve. Designing a system you’re an end user for is great. You know the pain points and the nuances of the problem.

The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It’s to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself. The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they’re something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way.
How To Get Startup Ideas, Paul Graham

But there’s a contradiction to this idea. What if you’re a UI/UX designer at a company that’s working on a product you know nothing about?

Should you only pick companies solving a problem you’re personally involved in?

Should you pick a company with an interesting problem statement and then learn as much as you can about it?

Is it a purely personal decision?

I’ve thought of these questions before, but a lot of them came to mind recently when at my previous gig at Housing.com, they announced that they would be shutting down the Rental platform to completely focus on its Buy platform. As someone who’s been working purely on rent since I joined, this was a bit of a challenge for me. I’ve only recently learnt how to do my taxes. I don’t know how bank loans work. How am I supposed to design a system that lets first time buyers and investors both, discover properties and buy them online?

My friends from design school will read this article and say, “wait, what’s the problem?” They’re taught to start with a needfinding exercise, interview stakeholders, create personas, journey maps and so on.

As a self taught designer, I find it can be a little challenging trusting a process rather than your intuition. To me, the best way to design a product is to put yourself in the shoes of the user by becoming the user. I have nothing against processes, (I’ve myself tried my hand at customer journey mapping with varying levels of success), but trusting your intuition about a problem always comes first, processes second.

My solution for a smooth transition into the Buy team was hence to try and buy a house. Some questions I had were

At what point in your life should you think about buying a home?
How do home loans work?
What should you look for while buying a house?
How do your preferences change whether you’re a first time buyer or an investor?
How big of a commitment is buying a home?

Uncovering these questions involved talking to people. Designers, developers, product managers on the Buy team. Home buyers and investors. Agents and loan officers. Builders and salespeople.

It also involved massive amounts of research. Home buying guides and forums. Property platforms. Trade and expo events. White papers and news articles.

How do you design a system you know nothing about?

Strengthen your intuition.