Dispatch No. 5 - Reframing

01. Signal

I was consulting on a health product where clinical trial participants kept dropping off the app. The team assumed it was because symptom-logging forms were tedious, so the design focus became efficiency. But research showed the real issue was confidence—people didn't trust their entries were reaching anyone or being acted on. That was exactly where participants wanted high touch: a real person reviewing their information. Reframing the problem from "make it faster" to "make it human" shifted the roadmap entirely.

Most problems don't get solved until we realize we're asking the wrong question.

In design, it's lightweight. We can shift the problem, test a new hypothesis, and get feedback quickly. If the frame doesn't hold, we adjust. That's the point of iteration—the stakes are meant to stay low.

In content, reframing carries more weight. Once a message is out in the world, we don't get to iterate as easily. The frame shapes trust, and trust is harder to win back than it is to keep.

Many of us design products that become part of people's everyday toolkit. These are the things people reach for when they're trying to make sense of something or just get things done. The problems we choose to solve matter more than how elegantly we solve them. Those choices shape whether people feel supported by what we've built, or overlooked by it.

Reframing gets you to the right problems. It takes discernment and sets the terms for what comes next.

02. Practice

The Five Whys exercise helps with reframing at all sorts of levels. Start with the problem you're facing, then ask "why" five times until you hit the root cause. Otherwise you'll spend your days patching symptoms. (See also: half the meetings on your calendar.)

Therapy has a cousin to this exercise for anxious thinking: "…and then what would happen?" or "…and what would be so bad about that?" Nudging past the surface story to what's really driving it.

In either case, it's about moving past symptoms and finding the frame that shapes everything downstream.

03. Tools

This Voltage Control guide breaks down why most teams rush to solutions before they understand the actual problem. It covers practical techniques like the Five Whys, affinity diagrams for organizing insights, and how to separate problem framing from solution ideation.

The piece emphasizes staying in the problem space longer than feels comfortable—fighting the urge to jump straight to fixes. A solid resource for anyone who wants to get better at asking the right questions before building.

04. Fragments

"The constellation of insights must line up in a compelling way, and usually those insights need to come from different vantage points to ensure an idea has a shot of making it into a well-timed, successful innovation."

- Kevin Bethune, Reimagining Design