Do less, but better!

As a product designer, I believe that my job is to design things that would simplify human lives. Today we have a lot of things craving for our attention, and they all keep us busy. Our attention span is at an all time low. That’s why it’s important to design products that do less and remain simple to learn and use. Products don’t need to become complex to become more valuable. I think it’s better to design small, well-rounded products that do one thing well; and maybe connect to other small products for those few use cases that overlap.

That’s why we should be clear about the logical end of the product we are designing. Whenever I design products, I try to also define what the product should not be. That way I make it clear what exactly we are trying to solve, who we are going after and more importantly, where to stop. So, does that mean when the product is developed as per design, the job is over? No. That’s when we have to start seeing if the product can be further simplified. Of course, the product has to undergo changes in order to keep up with the times, but it never should go beyond its original soul or the logical end, as I call it.

Every product starts off doing less, for obvious reasons. But feature creep is what makes great products fail. Newton Mail is about minimalism. It just does one thing, better. And we want it to remain that way.