Colin Cooper
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

Product Design Reflection

What makes a product good/what makes a product great?

As a product user, any product that performs a task better than a direct or indirect competitor I believe would qualify somewhere on the spectrum of “good”. As an avid podcast listener, I believe that the Overcast app works better for my needs than Apple’s pre-installed Podcast app; ergo it is “good”?

Greatness, on the other hand, is much harder to qualify. If I were to pick a defining quality of greatness – I’d be inclined to say that a product that fulfills a desire you never realized you had. A smart phone, of course. For me, the product that I return to obsessively is Instagram; especially impressive considering I have little to no desire to participate in social media. There’s so little interaction required on my part to transport me to other places, see what friends and colleagues are doing, learn something, or just be amazed. In this case a low barrier to entry and sustaining content I believe produce an incredible product.

For me, where Instagram succeeds where others fail is that has a low rate of infiltration of spam, fake news, and opinions are generally muted due to the photo format. Even the ads seem really well tailored to my tastes, which is surprising to see digital ads done well. Product development almost never interferes with key functions that the user is accustomed to (with the possible major exception of changing the feed order). Otherwise, integration of stories was done well and unobtrusively. Fit and finish of the app is done to the level you’d expect of a premier app.

Of all the products that I use on a near daily basis that heavily impact the way I navigate the world – Amazon, Spotify, Google Maps, Creative Cloud, I believe that I could find a valid replacement were it to disappear tomorrow. If the Instagram servers were to burn to the ground tomorrow I would have an unfulfilled need that a few years ago I never knew I needed — that, I believe, is what makes Instagram great.

And also, there’s this.
)

    Written by

    Designs stuff. Sometimes fishes.

    Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
    Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
    Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade