What is a great product?
Typically a good product tends to fulfill a need that hasn’t been fulfilled satisfactorily. A lot of physical, tangible products such as a weighted blanket (which soothes anxiety and helps with sleep) and a standing desk (which has also recently grown in popularity due to the growing number of work-related risks and injuries) are wildly popular and effective at solving certain core issues. Digital products such as Mural or Miro has made collaboration between virtual teams much more easy and effective. Navigation apps such as Google Maps or Waze have completely replaced the old clunky, corded GPS navigation systems, and eliminated the need to purchase such a system outside of a regular smartphone. These products and more are both innovative, fulfill a need, and stimulate high efficiency. They are also easy to use and have a very low barrier to entry, which makes it suitable for most consumers to taste-test.
I’ve become attracted to product design not only because I firmly believe that human beings are all deeply affected by what our eyes see, but also because creating products with great design can truly improve the quality of our lives. Little things such as the design or quality of a product, such as a a phone cover, can mean the difference between being able to grip onto it while in the restroom or having it slip through your fingers and into the toilet bowl. It’s my own internal belief that products have a subconscious affect on us, whether because of their colors, shapes, designs, or just how they make us feel in terms of their intrinsic value and what society alludes regarding certain products.
There are countless discussions about great mobile apps such as Google Maps, Yelp, etc. So, I’ve decided to discuss a less common but highly valued app in my personal mobile toolkit, which is the GoodNotes app. I love it because it syncs from my mobile, tablet and desktop. I teach English online as a side gig, and use online books, so whenever I make notes in one device, it automatically syncs onto all my others devices. It’s extremely convenient and I use it for taking notes, wire-framing and of course, even for storing and editing right onto my online books. Sometimes when I was living abroad, I wouldn’t have my tablet or desktop with me but would need access to the books. So I’d pull up my phone and when I got home, it’d be on my desktop ready for my tutoring session. Talk about lightning fast!
When Pinterest first came out, I admit- I didn’t think it would last. There have been so many different apps and websites that mimic the function of cataloguing articles on the web (such as Evernote, Instapaper, and Pocket). However, over the years, I noticed that many of my friends were starting to use Pinterest- not just for archiving pretty outfits or wallpaper- but for saving delicious recipes, desired hairstyles, their next manicure, a wishlist for their future vacation, and so on. It was becoming apparent to me that Pinterest was not just a place to pin your favorite aesthetically-pleasing posts, but really to gather anything and everything on the web that were tailored to one’s tastes and interests. Rather than using a physical cork board and thumbtacks, these pins are able to visually archive so many more vast items of interest and catalogue them into different folders.
With all that being said, technology doesn’t come without costs. As most Millennials would likely agree, I have a love/hate relationship with Instagram, because although it allows me to connect with friends, it also introduces into my life a large dose of other people’s highlights which subconsciously affect me, sometimes to the point of painful negativity. Instagram feeds the user an unending amount of different posts from friends in your social circle, and makes it so easy to just continue swiping down, or looking at their moments to see what they’re up to within the past 24 hours. Humans are born to be naturally curious, and intrigued about what others are doing, so Instagram feeds off of this inborn desire and increases our levels of dopamine when we browse through the app, thus creating in our minds a natural desire to come back and receive that same chemical high again.
Read this article from Northrop Grumman to learn more about what happens in your brain when you’re browsing Instagram.
