What Silicon Valley’s Pied Piper Could Do to Actually Survive
If you’ve been watching Season 3 of HBO’s Silicon Valley, you are probably thinking what this tech team could’ve done differently to make their product suck less. In my opinion, it all goes back to UX design process.
First and foremost, they should reconsider their ugly crammed user interface and go back to the drawing board to build a Lo/Hi-Fi prototype and test it with actual users. Hire a design team for god’s sake Richard!
Also, they need to decide on a clear set of target audience. Then interview them to understand how they like to use this platform and what their motivations are. An early stage startup should never create a product that targets everyone. This is partially Jared’s fault as the Head of Business Development!
Once they have a new design, they must prioritize their features and roll them out over time. What was with all those compression features and controls?! An airplane cockpit has less buttons than Pied Piper.
Richard also ignored the basic UX law — Use patterns that people are already familiar with. When iPhone first came out, it used real-life visual metaphors to acquaint users. Richard should use the familiar Dropbox model to allow people to download and also upload files at a fraction of the size. And then keep its “true-cloud” feature on the go for when saving data is truly important. Over time active users experience the better way of doing things and adapt themselves.
Lastly, Pakistani Denzel was right! They should create a specific API for third party apps, like the video chat. There’s endless potential there. They probably could sell this service as a subscription-based model to other startups to use in their real-time platforms.
I know this show is completely fiction, but it is based on true stories. Smart people make great products, but they simply forget that these products are not really for them. Otherwise, it would be a side-project, not a start-up. When you decide to be an entrepreneur, you must do all in your power to address the user needs instead of satisfying your own ego.
But, I’m sure Pied Piper team will find a way out of this mess and the nerdgasm will continue as HBO has renewed the show for another season. I just can’t wait to see what other animals Gavin has up his sleeve:
Consider the Sloth:
