💡 Are Your Lights On? — Solving the right problem
One question that works in daylight, tunnels, and car parks.
🧠 UX Interpretation: A question that covers states
Are Your Lights On? by Gerald M. Weinberg and Donald Gause (1978) is a short book with a long shadow. It is about problem solving, and it keeps dragging you back to the start. What problem are we really trying to solve?
The title phrase is the point. “Are your lights on?” fits many situations. Night driving. Daylight fog. A tunnel. Pulling into a car park. It is not accusatory. It does not assume failure. It checks the state before the diagnosis.
🎯 Theme: Framing before fixing
Teams often treat the first stated problem as truth. That is how you end up building brilliant solutions to the wrong question. A user asks for a faster process. What they want is reassurance. A client demands a new feature. What they want is control.
This book argues for a pause that feels almost unfashionable. Restate the problem. Ask who owns it. Ask what “better” means. A well-framed question keeps options open and reduces costly detours.
The switch can work perfectly. The room can still feel dark.
💡 UX Takeaways
- Use questions that work across multiple states, not just one scenario.
- Check assumptions before building solutions.
- Ask who benefits from the current “broken” state.
- Separate the request from the underlying need.
- Treat problem framing as part of the design.
📎 Footnote
The most useful questions are portable. They travel across contexts without losing meaning. “Are your lights on?” is not a metaphor. It is a design pattern for inquiry.