What We Know, Think We Know & Want to Know
Capture your team's existing knowledge, assumptions, and knowledge gaps before research begins.
What it is
When to use it
How to run it
Individually brainstorm items that fit into the 3 categories.
What we know… are things for which you can provide evidence e.g., a policy, document, article
What we think we know… are things that we have observed or experienced either ourselves or by working with others. These can also be assumptions.
What we want to know… these are questions you have from either the desktop research or the what we think we know that you would like to get answers to, usually during user research.
Share back with your team and play snap (one person reports back what they have and categorise into the 3 categories as you go. If other team members have the same item, they call snap and put their item together with the initial one)
When all items are categorised, move to the next person and repeat.
This can be done with post-its and butchers' paper (one sheet per question) or in a similar digital tool.
More from Discover
Related tools
Pairs well with these other methods from the discover phase.
Research Plan
A living document outlining your research questions, methods, participants and timeframes.
Hunches & Hypotheses
Surface team assumptions and biases before research so you can listen with a genuinely open mind.
Desktop Research
Review existing research and sources to gain a broad understanding of the current environment.