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Great products transcend the Usability vs. Utility debate
Your users want results, not compromises.
Your design team is pushing for simplification to make users’ lives easier. Your sales team is advocating for power features to close deals. Your customer success team is demanding both — a clearly impossible feat.
You’re stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. The next step is for you to choose which flavor of pain you want this quarter.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
The whole scenario exemplifies the casualties of the usability vs. utility war.
But the problem isn’t what you think it is — which is why you keep getting surprised when deals don’t close and customers churn, often for contradictory reasons.
The reality is this:
The battle between usability and utility is a futile war that’s destroying product value on both sides. While most companies choose between power and simplicity at every turn, the best understand that the right answer, as always, lies somewhere in between — and they find a way to maximize both utility and usability.
It’s not a zero-sum game.
