When to analyze and when to synthesize

👋 Welcome to the new subscribers who joined in the last couple of months! I’ll be writing at least 15 articles this year that will help you avoid the voodoo that’s in design and instead equip you with a better perspective on solving problems.

The default way we learn today is by analysis. Analysis means taking something and breaking it down into its parts, then studying the parts to understand the whole better. Think of chemistry; if we want to learn about water, we break it down into its pieces, in this case, hydrogen and oxygen. Or, to learn about how a car works, we look at its individual pieces to better understand the whole car. Analysis is the default way of figuring things out today, but it's not always the best way.

Russell Ackoff said, "no amount of disassembling (or analysis) of a car will tell you why in Europe the steering wheel is on the opposite side." Analysis can't tell you why a system works the way it does. It can just tell you how it's structured. An explanation of "why" never lies within a system; it lies outside it. Or, like Edward Deming said, "a system cannot explain itself." If you want to understand the "why" behind a question, you need synthesis. Synthesis means understanding how something relates to its larger system's purpose. Analysis would tell you how a university works by breaking it down into its department. Synthesis will tell you why it works the way it does by understanding how it relates to the purpose of the broader educational system. Analysis tells you how its works, synthesis tells you why it works the way it does.

If we want to learn why a user would need a product, why users are not using our product anymore, why there is demand for our product, or what product a customer would want to buy, we need to use synthesis. But today, we often use analysis by breaking down a user into personality traits or demographic categories. For example, no amount of analysis of a person can explain why they want to purchase a house. You can look into someone's personality traits or psychology, but you'll never get the answer. Instead, I could understand the external factors that caused that behavior to happen by synthesizing. Maybe the kids moved out, and the couple is getting older and wants to downsize into a single-floor house for retirement. Those outside forces caused them to be in the market for a new home, not their personality, psychology, or demographics.

You cannot understand a person's actions by analysis, only by synthesis.

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