Assumptions are everywhere in how we humans see the world. In any situation we find ourselves in, there’s way more information to experience and process than we can handle. It is human nature to fill in the gaps with what we think is true.

“Making assumptions allows us to make sense of something when we get limited information. […] Every part of a thing you imagine exists, but aren’t directly perceiving, is an assumption.”

from Step by Step Guide to Stand Up Comedy by Greg Dean

Now I’m not here to give assumptions a bad name, quite the opposite. Assumptions are especially helpful with two things I like: collaborating and telling jokes. First, let’s consider jokes.

Two kids were camping in the backyard. Late at night they started wondering what time it was. “Start singing really loudly,” one of them suggested. “How will that help?” the other asked. “Just do it,” insisted the first. They both started singing loudly as they could. Moments later, a neighbor threw open their window and shouted, “KEEP IT DOWN! DON’T YOU KNOW IT’S THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING?”

adapted from Jokelopedia: The biggest, silliest, dumbest joke book ever by Ilana Weitzman, Eva Blank, Alison Benjamin, Rosanne Green

To help my pursuit of making comics, I’ve dabbled with studying humor and how jokes work. To tell jokes, we need assumptions. Being in the audience listening to a joke everyone is united by assumptions.

This mechanism of assuming gives us the joke format. In the joke format, you have 2 stories. One is a premise that is actually hidden until later, the punch line. What you start out telling is a framing inviting others to begin assuming.

Designing and making products using assumptions

As individuals we make assumptions all the time, one of my favorites is “blank will be easy”. Where blank is anything from “this meeting” to “getting funding” or “getting the word out”.

As we collaborate in groups to design and build things we bring our assumptions with us. It’s easy and natural to assume to fill in the blanks about other people’s work. We make assumptions about someone else’s job, the shared purpose we have together, choices other collaborators will make and that’s just for starters.

So how can all that assuming be a good thing?

Let’s consider assumptions as something that happens in a timeline. Assumptions work great for us as we’re starting out understanding a problem we’re working on. Then unexplored assumptions take the blame for us if we only notice them later in our creative process.

Make the most of assumptions early in collaborations

Assumptions help us get started with working together. Let’s say you’re kicking off a project and it’s time to build clarity for what you’re working on together, why, and how.

If you are leading facilitation, design, or product you’ll likely present much of what, and why, maybe even some of the how. Presenting needs, evidence, and research can feel like you’ve presented one story that everyone will understand. This is where if you are not explicit with your assumptions and the assumptions the team is making then you could end up with 2 or more storylines going on at the same time. But in this case the punchline is not as funny. Ask some questions of the group to bring everyone closer together on the same focus and purpose. It’s a great time to explore assumptions and clarify.

Explore assumptions as a group

Hand out markers and sticky notes and give everyone limited quiet time to individually capture their thoughts and answers to 3-step questions (coming up).

Gather and explore the team’s assumptions building from a general purpose in step 1, to more focus in step 2, and ultimately what assumptions need further investigation in step 3.

• Step 1: Describe a problem you want to solve/core project concept and ask everyone: What makes you feel confident about solving/making this?
• Step 2: What makes you unsure about solving this?
• Step 3: What would help our chances of success with this?

If you’re working remotely or without sticky notes, you can adapt a remote document tool of choice like any of the Google Suite or even Trello or messaging tools. Anywhere the group is feeling comfortable enough to capture their thoughts with little self editing.

Disconnecting from assumptions is where things can go wrong.

We need assumptions to help move forward together. It’s understandable that we’re not always comfortable to share the things we are not confident about. Because we are admitting we may not know the answers. Yet if we are willing to try, assumptions will lead us to useful questions.

So let’s reframe assumptions. Just like joke tellers do.

You are a team facing a project, fixing a problem users are having with your website or it could be falling behind in expected downloads of your application. Maybe your service’s user onboarding process is not as strong as it could be. In any case you’re a team, with an overall purpose and a specific problem to face.

Let’s say we’re concerned about app downloads and meet as a team to discuss what to do. At the start we may have all separate assumptions ranging from:

• One person wants to change the product description
• Another may have some clickstream data concerns about the download button
• While another person feels sure it’s time to revamp the whole look of the store’s user interface

Using the steps above we can go from not knowing one another’s assumptions to seeing them together in one place. Steps 1 and 2 can reveal assumptions to look into and 3 can help with choosing where to go next together.

You and your team will create at least two powerful collaborative outcomes:

• You’ll learn one another’s assumptions
• You’ll have more focus on which assumptions to explore first

Assumptions give us a place to begin exploring a story.

We can use our assumption powers to help understand what we think about a project, our collective concerns, or to tell a joke. So much benefit from a natural thing we all do.

Originally published as Practicing UX: Assumptions. Talk about them early and often. | by Rob Stenzinger | on Prototypr