Two design rules that make products win.
The secrets of Zoom, Amazon, and Apple products.
Winning Products dominate. You don’t want to compete with them. Once a winning product is in someone’s hands, it’s almost impossible to pry it out. Examples of winning products include Zoom, Amazon, and Apple's iPhone. But what makes these products winning?
A Winning Product is both best-in-class and first-in-mind.
“Best in class” means the product solves the problem so well for this group of people, it's indistinguishable from the perfect solution. A winning product's solution is so close to the ideal, the customer isn't motivated to look for something better.
Customer perceptions are shaped by past products, creating mundane expectations. This opens an opportunity for a winning product to solve the problem close to the ideal way. It's not incrementally better, it's orders of magnitude better. Once it's in, it's in. The only strategy a competitor could adopt would be to solve a different but closely related problem. Or solve the same problem for a different group of people. DuckDuckGo will never beat Google in search. But they could become the search platform for people who value their privacy.
It's possible to have a great product that still doesn't win. “First in mind” means when I encounter the problem, I think of the product. To win, a product needs to become the first solution that consumers think of when they have the problem. When I want to search, I “google” something. This creates a loyalty loop. When the customers encounter the problem, they think of the product. They purchase the product(if necessary), use it, and provide feedback and referrals. The product grows, and the cycle repeats.
But how do you design a Winning Product? If you're in San Francisco, head to Market and 2nd, find five designers (they're the ones wearing all black, white shoes), and ask them how to design a winning product. You'll get five rambling answers.
To design a Winning Product, just follow these two rules.
The solution must start with a single primitive: have a single solution, for a specific problem, and solve it in the best way. Zoom has meetings, the iPhone has apps. There must be only one starting primitive.
Build on existing solutions, do not reinvent the wheel. Cobbling together existing solutions means it's more predictable for you; but more importantly, it's more familiar to your customers. Everything's a remix.
Winning Products are defined by being best in class, and first in mind. You create a Winning Product by offering a solution with a single primitive, then build on existing solutions.
Here are some examples…
Zoom
Problem: Talk via the internet.
Solution: The Zoom “meeting.”
Zoom is best in class. They solved the problem of "talk via the internet" so well, we use "zoom" as a verb today. This is an indicator of a winning product and shows Zoom is clearly first in mind. If I need to chat with coworkers, or spend time remotely with friends during a pandemic, I Zoom.
Zoom's product offers a single primitive: the meeting. When designing a product it's tempting to create solution forks. Where we solve different problems in different ways, then try to bring it all together. No. Zoom offers the meeting where you can also: chat, share your screen, react via emojis, share files, see video, hear audio, etc.
Notice these are all existing solutions. Zoom didn't reinvent the video camera. The chat interface is blah. Recordings get stored and linked predictably. Screensharing is a common practice. None of these solutions are new or novel to anyone saying "Let's Zoom". They built with existing solutions.
Here's a design secret, when someone says "this is easy to use", what they're saying unknowingly is "I use other products today that have similar patterns, and therefore I know how to use this and I feel powerful." Using existing solutions is important because it's a shortcut to the "this is easy to use" moment.
The losing product: Skype
Skype, in contrast, does not have a single primitive. Even though it also enables people to talk using the internet, Skype is solving many problems in many ways. Skype is chat, contacts, and video calling in one product. Three problems, and three separate solutions. I don't know which specific problem it solves for me, so it's not first in mind.
iPhone
Problem: Use the power of the Internet in your pocket without sacrificing the functionality of a phone.
Solution: The “app.”
The iPhone wasn’t the first to offer apps on mobile devices. They perfected it in a way only Apple could: by integrating the software and hardware into one simple product. Because the iPhone took away the keyboard and replaced it with a touchscreen: the “app” was able to become a single primitive. Every app could solve a specific problem in the near-ideal way.
You’ll notice that everything's an app in iOS. As a designer, you could make the case that “Settings” is a special circumstance where users need to modify important properties. No. Everything's an app: including the Phone, Settings, and the Calculator. This creates a shortcut in your brain. The primitive is an app. To solve a problem, you look for the best possible app that solves that problem.
Apps are then composed of existing solutions we’re familiar with: text, images, inputs, and buttons. 99% of apps do the same thing. They accept information (inputs and buttons), and they display information.
I use a web browser on my phone, it’s composed of familiar solutions to me. A window, with an URL input, a view that displays the webpage, and buttons to share and save the pages I arrive at. The single primitive (the app) is set up to solve a specific problem (my visiting a website), and does so with existing solutions.
The losing product: Blackberry
Blackberry had apps too! But what else did Blackberry have? A keyboard. What if I'm playing a poker game? Do I want a full-size QWERTY keyboard? What if I'm using a calculator? By Apple removing the keyboard, each app can truly solve one specific problem in the best way. You couldn't do this with a Blackberry phone.
Amazon
Problem: Buy something without having to travel to multiple stores.
Solution: The Amazon “product.”
Amazon has, well, products. That's their primitive. If I want a new book to read, and a pack of 24 toothbrushes, the primitive is the same. They're solving the problem of me needing a physical good in my possession. They're best in class and they're the first place I think of when I need something. A “product” on Amazon shows me common solutions: the price of the product, ratings, delivery time, images, a description, etc. There’s nothing new about an image of a product and a price next to it, this is an existing solution.
Another benefit of Winning Products is: it makes the strategy easy. Amazon sells products. What do you want from products? You want them at a lower cost to you, and you want them as soon as possible. Amazon just makes products cheaper and gets them to you faster, it's hard for any competitor to solve this problem better than they do. From Jeff Bezos…
It's impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, 'Jeff I love Amazon; I just wish the prices were a little higher,' [or] 'I love Amazon; I just wish you'd deliver a little more slowly.'
The losing product: Big-box retailers
Big box retailers don't solve my problem. I want to predictably find the item I need, at a low price, and get it in my hands as soon as possible. I might be able to run to the store and find the product, but will they have it? It could take me more time, and will be more expensive. There's no single primitive, making it hard for any retailer to be first in mind.
Those are the two design rules for Winning Products. Hopefully, these case studies help you harness these ideas when you’re building yours.