What Makes a Product Great?

As someone new to Product Design, gaining this understanding, or at least attempting to define product greatness somehow, can provide targets to work toward in each & every design effort.

Fortunately, experienced folks have provided guidance — in Jeff Weiner’s article, What Makes a Truly Great Product Great, he outlines five ‘Dimensions’ of product greatness that he and his team aim towards:

1. Delivers on a singular value proposition in a world-class way: “[G]reat products have a clearly defined sense of purpose, deliver value in a singularly focused way, and do so as well or better than any other product in the marketplace.”
2. Simple, intuitive and anticipates needs
3. Exceeds expectations
4. Emotionally resonates
5. Changes the user’s life for the better.

He emphasizes that the product needs to meet all of the five categories. There is a lot packed into the first category, but overall I was surprised how incredibly design-centric this whole list is. It gives the design team an enormous amount of responsibility, but if this perspective is widely shared by other company leaders, it is reassuring and motivating to hear how highly-valued design may be in the industry. Of course it is super challenging to deliver a product that is excellent in all of these dimensions, but I find it also super exciting that by hitting a high mark on all of these points that are totally within our wheelhouse as designers, we just may be able to build something Great. Imagine!!

I suppose for a product team to be able to get the support they need to properly develop these 5 dimensions, the product needs to be fundamentally aligned towards solving the right problem so that it meets its business case. In some instances this would be measured in revenue, but perhaps in others number of users, or additionally in user surveys. Also, if a product is not properly marketed and doesn’t have the exposure to get traction, can it still be great if no one knows about it? Clearly, design does not operate in a vacuum and the entire team must be pulling together.

Another question is just how well-known or widely-used a product needs to be, to be considered great. The iPhone, Facebook & Google have shaped and shifted our lives and perspectives on a tectonic level. How can more modest efforts be measured? Weiner asserts that lesser-known products can absolutely hit the marks of greatness, using the meditation app Headspace as an example.

So how exactly do designers go about hitting such high marks? Gulp. Amit Ashwini writes about this in Top 10 Principles For Building Great Software Products. Overall, he emphasizes people on the product team being experienced, rigorous, passionate & committed to excellence & objectivity. Here is how he breaks it down [points from article, summaries mine]:

1. Data is your guide — Data should trump experience & intuition
2. Staying detached — Be passionate, but open to change
3. Be the user — Use your own product!
4. Don’t wait for perfection — Build a decent MVP, then iterate based on feedback/data
5. Ask your users the right questions — Do it frequently & be systematic about it
6. Do away with the frills — K.I.S.S.! Plus, simplicity is beautiful
7. Your team — The right people are essential!
8. Question the status quo — Be open & adaptable to new ideas & modes of working
9. Use deadlines to your advantage — Leverage the ever-present parameter of time to aid prioritization & responsive outcomes
10. Prioritize early. — Use KPI’s as a tool to prioritize, & build those into 1–2 weeks cycles.

Although Ashwini emphasizes experience, he also presents it as a double-edged sword, which can stifle fresh perspectives & innovation. I can personally attest that it can often feel much easier to rely on experience at a certain point, rather than taking the time to question & relearn. However, this gives me hope as a new product designer that I can perhaps use research and data as a tool to somewhat make up for my lack of experience.

He concludes with the idea of becoming comfortable with failure — it’s a part of the creative process and a sign the team is exploring new ideas. This is a concept that I do find differs from the architecture/ interiors world. In hospitality interiors, we truly strive to be innovative, and our clients usually state they desire that of us. But similarly, there is often little acceptance of the idea of failure, as a completed project represents a substantial investment of time, money & work, with a manifestation of a physical environment that cannot easily be changed. Moreover, the completed project has to be functional, operational & profitable for a number of years to recapture the investment made. Software seems much more nimble in terms of production, testing, iteration & change. While clearly it still requires an investment of time and money to build, the iterative cycle can be greatly compressed, without a physical manifestation to deal with.

As a new product designer, I’m grateful to veterans of the industry for sharing their perspectives. Weiner’s article about what to shoot for and Ashwini’s for how to get there together illuminates a path to great products. I’m going to do my best to follow it. Onward!