Apathetic Thursday | Ask Better Questions

When shopping for calculators, computers, tablets, televisions, cameras, and other electronics the number one question I hear asked is ‘which one is best’? This is the wrong question to ask… Or at least, an incomplete question.

Let’s go hammer shopping and I’ll show you what I mean.

During high school I worked in a hardware store. If you came in looking for the best hammer, I would probably point you towards one like this. It’s just like the hammers my dad and grandpa have. It works well and it’s cheap, so it must be the best. Right?

Well, a few years later when I worked construction with my uncle. He gave me a hammer like this. It’s solid steel, so there is nothing to break in the handle. It’s a but heavier, but drives nails faster. So clearly, this is the best.

That is, unless you are trying to break a concrete wall. In which case I would direct you to a sledge hammer. Its strong, heavy and can take out any wall, concrete or wood. The strongest and heaviest hammer must be the best, right?

Unless you don’t want to destroy what you are pounding on. Maybe you really want a rubber mallet. If you are working with wooden pegs, maybe this is the best hammer.

Although, if you plan to give this hammer to a 5 year old child, you should maybe plan to buy a small plastic hammer, or maybe one of those squishy hammers.

So what did we learn today?

We cannot answer the question ‘which is best’ without a use case.

So ask better questions.

One problem is that most people don’t understand the the technology to know what to ask. You have to slowly walk them through their options and find out what they want to use the device for.

Which means both the user and the helper have to ask better questions.

How do we solve this?

As better questions.

EDIT: When looking for images to accompany this post I discovered that there are a lot more hammer types than I had thought. I didn’t need to go into more detail to make my point in this case, but the Art of Manliness website has a post on How to Handle a Hammer and they list 10 different hammer types, along with hammer safety and usage tips. (And this doesn’t even begin to cover war hammers, masonry hammers, judge gavels, etc.)