Practice
A few things I’ve learned
- Complexity never disappears. Decline to handle it and it lands on whoever has the least room to say no.Read
- Capacity comes before capability. A lot of what reads as resistance is somebody at the edge of what they can hold.Read
- Nobody arrives at their best. A product that only works for the calm, clear version of somebody works on the good weeks.Read
- When code gets cheap
The part that doesn’t get cheaper
As AI makes building software cheaper, the advantage moves to deciding what to build and settling the open questions around it. The teams that move fastest bring a proposal to each of those questions.
Read - When no-code isn’t
Business users are experts at their own subject
The person configuring a no-code tool is usually already an expert in her own subject. The tool works when it asks about that subject in her words and leaves the engineering to the system.
Read - Modeling a person
Our users do not arrive in their best state
I’ve learned a great deal from psychology that product and design teams can use. The most useful part so far is that people move between states, while our words for them describe traits.
Read - Teams
Capacity comes before capability
As humans we like to think we have an unlimited capacity for good things. However, experience and research shows our nervous systems disagree.
Read - Designing for misuse
Close the pathway
Most misuse runs through steps a product already allows, taken from an ordinary account. Changing one of those steps can make the whole route stop paying.
Read - Why people don’t use it
What was in the way
People use a system when the team behind it understood what stands between them and the safe way of working. The answer is rarely on the roadmap.
Read - How people actually use software
Designing for humans
Good design starts from how people actually meet software, in the middle of a busy day with whatever attention they have left.
Read - The mechanism
Who carries the complexity
Every feature comes with some complexity, and somebody ends up holding it: the product team, the engineering team or the person using the software. The best products leave as little of it as possible with the person.
Read - The second product
A customer is not a product
To have a seamless experience across a portfolio of products, it’s important that the data model represent the full complexity of what’s possible, as early as possible.
Read - Information software
The view is the product
In software where people read, scan, compare and decide, the arrangement of the data is the product.
Read - On AI, and tools generally
Power-ups don’t pass levels
AI is a power-up, and it’s still the player who passes the level.
Read - Keeping users safe
What your users are up against
Your users need to be safe while they use your product. The people who know best what could harm them are the ones who have already been burned.
Read - On shipping
Thyme to market
Whoever ships first gets paid to learn from real buyers. I’ve learned that a launch usually loses to somebody who sold a rougher version to the same buyers first and used the money to catch up.
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