Part of my job as a design lead is to listen to designers present their work and point out underlying assumptions.

Assumptions not articulated are toxic to design.

Articulated assumptions are useful: starting points for research and inquiry.

Every assumption is a question.

"Identifying assumptions" isn't a skill we talk about much in UX. I don't even know if there's a mechanical way to do it.

It starts with listening.

And then asking: What must be true for this concept to be useful, relevant, or feasible?

Today I looked at functionality that lets users create collections of [widgets]. (Like a playlist or wishlist.) This yielded assumptions like:

- People want more than one collection
- People use filters to create collections
- People want aggregate data across a collection