Designers Must Use Products

Shaan Puri shares his perspective on product design excellence, particularly focusing on how personal usage and attention to detail can lead to better product development. He uses Slack as a key example to illustrate his point about sweating the small details.

Key Points:

• Product Development Philosophy:

  • Working on products you personally use leads to better outcomes
  • You become more attuned to "paper cuts" (small annoyances) when you're the user
  • Natural motivation to fix issues that personally irritate you

• Attention to Detail Example:

  • Recalls early Slack experience with hex color codes
  • Slack automatically converted hex codes to color swatches
  • This level of detail showed deep care about user experience
  • Only a dedicated product designer would implement such a specific feature

• Personal Admission:

  • Acknowledges not being detail-oriented himself
  • Recognizes and appreciates when others pay attention to small details
  • Values the impact of detailed thinking despite not having that tendency

• Key Takeaway:

  • Best product improvements come from solving your own irritations
  • Real product designers constantly look for ways to remove "paper cuts"
  • Personal usage creates natural motivation to improve product experience

This perspective emphasizes that the best product improvements often come from creators who are also active users of their products, as they're naturally motivated to solve even the smallest inconveniences they encounter.