Rendering intentionality
Adding new features to a product is relatively easy. Ensuring we’re solving the right problems is not.
Products start small and focused.
They do one thing really well — and that’s the primary reason they become successful.
But soon, the team behind the product comes to the conclusion that it must do more. Features are added, new use cases are covered, and functionalities become more sophisticated over time.
This can happen for a few reasons:
- Users are asking for features, and the product team is accepting their feedback directly
- Business stakeholders create pressure for constant growth, leaving the design team scrambling for new ways to generate revenue
- The performance of the product team is evaluated by the number of features it delivers as opposed to the relevance of those features for the end users
Often, after adding several features, it’s too late for the team to go back. The product’s original value proposition, which is what attracted users in the first place, is now diluted. The user experience rots as the product becomes more complex and less meaningful to its users.
“Design is the rendering of intent.”
— Jared Spool
When facing issues on how to keep a product relevant over time, the first reaction is trying to course-correct the product by… adding even more features. We are once again perpetuating the same mentality that created the issue: building on top of something that, to start with, wasn’t right. Most importantly, we are just perpetuating established values. Many issues related to bias, abuse, and misuse will be sewn into the lines of code, unless designers are actively working to fix them.
For teams who are rewarded for adding features to a product, removing one can feel like a failure. For these teams, design is the rendering of features
Source: RdBannon, Lukew, fredbenenson, LegendOfVinnyT. (alt: screenshots showing modals and pop-ups taking most of the screen)
Great products do less, but better
Focusing our products is a hard path, but not impossible to walk. Clearly stating their position on privacy, Tonic has managed to create a news app that doesn’t require a login and uses a more transparent algorithm to make content recommendations. It would have been easier to add a “sign in with Google” to capture user data. But Tonic went a different route, which in the end, is simpler for the user.
Another example is Basecamp, who recently removed the pixel tracking from their emails. As its founder David Heinemeier Hansson explains: “The tech industry has been so used to capturing whatever data it could for so long that it has almost forgotten to ask whether it should. But that question is finally being asked. And the answer is obvious: this gluttonous collection of data must stop. Privacy isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also better business. Discerning customers are already demanding it, and everyone else will too soon enough.”
In 2020, being intentional about our designs means knowing that our job is to solve user needs, not to keep developers busy. It means caring more about our users and the impact of our work than about the work itself.
This article is part of our State of UX report: a holistic analysis of digital design as a discipline, and what to expect for the future.
