Why design is more important than
technical capabilities and feature set, and how this ties into the way
we think about and build microservices.
Imagine a chair.
Four legs (or 3 ), a place to sit, and some support to lean on. The
technology is ubiquitous. Nonetheless, IKEA has hundreds (maybe
thousands) of different items that you could call a chair. And
beyond that, IKEA has a design language that differentiates it from
other furniture makers also making chairs. And all of these chair makers
are making chairs — even I could make a chair after a trip to Home
Depot, or by just pulling together some things that I have lying around
the house.
Yet, IKEA is successful, people love their chairs, and pay hundreds of dollars for them.
Better Wi-Fi
Before Wi-Fi, we had high-speed modems connected to grey cables. Before high-speed modems, we had just regular modems.
They were clunky, noisy, and not very user-friendly. Slowly they became
faster — 9.6k to 14.4k and beyond. Right around 100m we stopped caring.
The speed of the modem was higher than what we needed. A 100m modem
allows you to watch Youtube no problem. All of a sudden a new modem
promising 120m will no longer have an impact.
There is a dynamic balance — at some point, the maximum
bandwidth required to enjoy most Internet-based services became lower
than the maximum bandwidth available.
At this point, Wi-Fi started showing up. Wi-Fi really solves a
design problem. It did not “innovate” technologically — you are still
just connecting to the same internet, watching the same movies. But it
liberated you from that grey cable. A contractor was no longer required
to run wires through your drywall just to get internet upstairs.
And now Wi-Fi is ubiquitous. Most companies provide a Wi-Fi
router that will allow you to stream 4k on Netflix anywhere in the
house.
And so Google entered the market by building one that is easier to hook up and connect, and it looks sleek.
Design Matters When Functional Capabilities Stop Being Exceptional
For Steve Jobs to succeed, Bill Gates had to succeed. Only
after “a computer was on every desk and in every home” did people start
caring about the design of a computer. And only after everyone already
had a flip phone did the iPhone have a chance. In the '80s, Steve Jobs
was too far ahead of his time — in 2006 he was just right.
For years I was a proud Android user who scoffed at the
fools lining up to buy an iPhone. But Samsung and co. didn’t understand
the user. The user is not so concerned with the number of cores the CPU
has, just with the types of apps they can use; the user doesn’t care
about the number of megapixels in the camera, just about the quality of
pictures they will take. While Samsung was trying to stuff features into
its phone it did not investigate design. It took a long time for
Samsung to understand that cell phones are saturated — to differentiate
they didn’t just need to design better phones, their phones needed
better design. Cellphones are now like chairs. And to succeed companies
need to think like IKEA.
Design Is Not the Color of the Button
A lot of times people enter the room with the wrong
assumption — that design is about the colors of the buttons and the
margins, etc. As Steve Jobs explained ages ago, “Design is how it
works.”
Websites, like computers and chairs, have become commoditized.
Squarespace, Wix.com, etc. allow none developers to achieve almost all
the functionalities that an owner of a website would want. There is no
longer a need to hire a webmaster, a web designer, or a web developer to
be able to sell shirts online or write a blog.
Design First Development
Mobile first is old, and most conversations still start with
business requirements. Most conversations need to start with design
requirements.
This means accessibility in its broadest sense — from color
contrast to screen readers, to reading on mobile phones from 2008, to
loading with low bandwidth, no bandwidth, etc. It means understanding
the user, understanding your user, and developing a product
that helps them. If the user wanted your information they already know
how to get it. They can phone you, find you on Facebook, tweet you, DM
you on Instagram, etc. If you want them to get it your way, you need to
design it their way.
It is not enough that the information is available, the
information must be more accessible and comprehensible than what is
available now. To achieve this, the focus has to be on design, not on
technical capability. Even one feature that's more design-friendly to
the user will create valuable traction and conversion. It will drive
adoption. Design will drive adoption, not your feature set.
Design First and Microservices
Often I hear people throw the microservices catchphrase
around. Netflix has it, etc., and entire organizations think of it as a
technology strategy. Engineers and architects need to understand that
microservices do not solve a technological problem. The same way Wi-Fi
didn’t solve a technological problem. The ability to be nimble and
deliver features quickly is not a technological requirement, it is a
design requirement that comes from seeking alignment with users.
As an architecture pattern, microservices allow software
companies to embrace Design Thinking and a Design First approach to
technology. We deliver a small service that is tied to a particular
feature and if the feature needs to change we can write another service
without breaking the first one. Some users can use the feature the way
it was initially written, and some other users can be given the
different version of the feature that better fits their need.
Monolithic architectures want monolithic users.
Microservices embrace diversity in users. Microservices, fundamentally,
solve a design problem. Starting off your architecture redesign journey
without design leadership is like investing in building a great factory
without having any product in mind.
Design First Technology
Some may think this is old news. But having worked most of
my career with technology teams, I know that there is a weak
understanding of the value of design. Design is often sacrificed first
to achieve time to market. Most product owners and business executives
still believe a larger feature set is preferable to a small feature set
with top-notch design.
The larger feature set is only required if you are giving
the user something they have never done before — like an underwater
cellphone. If the user is already doing all the things they are doing —
and I don’t mean digitally, I mean they are somehow doing it — then it
is important to lead with design.
