Are You Asking the Right Question?

Finding the Right Question with AFC Thinking

Recently I dealt with a customer complaint. We sell digital menus on tablets, which allow customers to place orders themselves while dining in. We created this product because some customers take a long time to decide what to order, and others like to add dishes during the meal. A digital menu saves the waiter's time by shifting the ordering process to customers, allowing the waiter to focus on other services.

This customer wanted to cancel the digital menu because, in his words, "the image quality is very bad." even though we hired a photographer for food photography and editing. He said, "My customers can't even tell what kind of fish is in the sushi. This menu sucks."

I found this interesting. As an Asian myself, I often can't tell what kind of fish is in sushi either. As we dug deeper into the issue, we found out: since the owner began to use the digital menu, customers often pointed at the pictures on the digital menu and asked the owner what kind of fish is that. Before the digital menu, the owner used a paper menu with no images, only text listing all the ingredients in each sushi dish, so customer know what kind of sushi or fish they were ordering. But now the images have become the center of attention. Without ingredient descriptions, the owner had to spend more time explaining the dishes, so he blamed the image quality.

The real problem is this: images on the menu help customers make decisions. What the owner actually needed was ingredient descriptions, not sharper images. Such a small misunderstanding cost the product and operations team an entire week of work.

Asking the Right Question

Asking the right question is not only key to product work, but also essential in the AI era. The difference between people lies in their ability to ask the right question. Sadly, AI is making us lose this ability. A product manager used to spend a week writing a product requirement document (PRD), thinking about how to structure the document, how to use language effectively to communicate. Now you only need to input a prompt "write a PRD" with one line or two of the pain point, a sentence of your idea and the PRD is done in 5 mins or less.

The Problem with AI Questions

Amazing, right? But also awful.

I noticed that many people don't know how to ask the right question when I served as a volunteer AI technologist at Decoded Future. We helped a group of non-profit organizations to solve their problems with AI and most of them typed "how to generate an email template" in ChatGPT and AI will list the step by step instruction for them to follow. Without the right question, you may start walking toward an irrelevant solution and continue moving further away from the real problem.

Introducing the AFC Framework

Today I am proposing a new framework to get the right question — the AFC framework, which uses 3 points to locate the right question. It can't give you the solution directly but follow the lead, you will get the right question and start from here.

AFC framework follows three-point positioning method, in this framework, this three points are actor, force and context, and I will explain more.

Actor

Actor is different from "user."

The term appears frequently in drama and fiction. To create a vivid actor, authors write a detailed character biography that explains who the character is and how they behave in different situations.

A famous example is Sherlock Holmes.

If someone asked you to play Sherlock Holmes, you might immediately imagine:

  • a detective hat
  • a pipe
  • careful observation of every detail at a crime scene
  • connecting clues to identify the criminal

This is a rich actor with clear behavioral patterns.

Think about the actor in your product:

  • Who are they?
  • What do they like?
  • What motivates them?

The more details you identify, the richer and more accurate the actor becomes.

Force

Force is the power that drives action.

People need some form of force to make a decision. It can be strong or subtle.

For example, imagine you are deciding where to eat lunch. Your colleague asks if you want to go to a barbecue restaurant offering a buy-one-get-one lunch special. You quickly look at the menu and decide to go.

Several forces might be influencing your decision:

  • you want company
  • you like barbecue
  • you want to save money

All of these forces combine to push you toward the action. That combination is force.

To understand force, you need to understand both the motivation and the trigger behind the action.

Context

A good story always has a context.

Context often contains conflict. Conflict creates tension, which pushes the actor to take action. Finding the conflict within the context helps reveal the true pain point.

Take one of my favorite movies, Titanic.

At first glance, it is a love story between Rose and Jack. But underneath lies a major conflict between the wealthy elite who rely on status symbols and the poor who survive through resilience and struggle.

Within this context, Rose—who is slowly suffocating within her upper-class life—is influenced by Jack and eventually pushed toward a new path in life.

When you understand the actor, force, and context, you can understand every decision Rose makes.

The same principle applies to products—and even to life.

Now, let's try this framework to stop my dog from chasing the squirrel

When you understand the actor, force, and context, you can understand every decision Rose makes. The same principle applies to products—and even to life.

Now I will show you step by step:

  1. Start with a question, let's say "how to stop my dog from chasing the squirrel?"
  2. Then think about the actor. Who needs a solution? And what have they tried? Why did they fail?
  3. Then, let's talk about force. What is the trigger and what motivations drive the action?
  4. Finally, context. Where do you need to apply the solution? Under what conditions? What is the desired goal?

Once you identify the actor, force and context, you will see the conflict clearly. Within that frame, the right question will emerge.

Risks of the Framework

Of course there are risks in this framework:

  1. You must provide details to actor, force, and context, the more, the better the framework works. Like when you describe the actor, instead of "owner", you can say "owner who just owned the first dog, no previous training experience, learnt how to train dog via social media, work on-site", the more, the better.
  2. You may lack information, if you do, research. Find the data, or interview, survey, get data from talks. But remember, don't rely on AI. They may be a good resource, but the valuable insights always come from the first hand.