Proposal for the convention or structure for one type of question on UXSE and feedback

Question

Just wondering if this is a convention or feature of interest to develop in UXSE.

I have come across a recent question where the OP adopted a convention/method of structuring a question that seems to be popular in another StackExchange site. It takes the format of:

Context (information here)

Solution (approach/answer here)

Problem (issue/question here)

Now the exact order probably is worth debating (i.e. should a solution be proposed before clarifying what the problem is?) but I think as long as there is a logical connection between the three sections then it is at least a consistent structure for what I think is a very typical type of question on UXSE, which is the "Is the colour of the button that I used right?" sort of question that often gets closed because it is opinionated.

I believe if we apply this type of format to those types of questions, then we can actually frame it in such a way that it becomes a useful question to try and answer. Any thoughts on this from the community?

Answer 1

Interesting idea, I would certainly support a more consistent structure which supports posters thinking about these aspects when they post.

The area which most interests me in your proposal is the context, as I feel this is very much more relevant for UX type questions than some other areas, to the extent that one response may be totally valid or totally invalid for the same question based on the context.

What's interesting to me is that in terms of understanding the question and providing an answer which may help the OP, this makes sense, but conversely, a context-specific answer as a reference point to others may not be helpful if their context differs and they haven't clocked this.

As with anything, I think how much context and how specific the response is a balancing act. Personally, I've answered a few questions where the context was either incomplete or ambiguous, as a result, it forced me to provide a more generic response with reasons why you may or may not chose this approach, in some ways providing the context for decision making as part of the answer!

I'm not sure what is best for the OP or what is best for the responder, or what is best for longer-term references. There seem trade-offs which each.