So part of the problem with form over function, and this actually happens

even in the best products. I'd like to call out apple for its notch, that is the
definition of form over function. This is a photo from their marketing
website, and certainly it's incredibly novel. Certainly it serves the purpose
of a marketer to be able to have this very novel, different thing and
differentiate it from all of these other smartphones out there. In terms of
function when I'm watching a video, this is categorically worse. Like why
am I ... I'm not here for the notch, I'm here for the content and this happens
all over the place. You might go to a restaurant later tonight, and it's a
beautiful restaurant. Incredibly well decorated, very, very thoughtful,
incredible food, but you'll walk in and you'll sit down at this seat and gosh,
it's so romantic but I really can't read my menu. I can't even order. This is
again an example of form this idea of well, we want to make people feel
like this is a romantic premium, incredible experience but then if I can't
even read the menu, why am I here? This happens all the time. One of my
favorite books that I highly recommend that you read is Don Norman's
Design of Everyday Things, and he basically has a whole chapter about this
on doors that are incredibly beautiful, but you have no idea how to use
them. So this is one of the more absurd situation. So like someone actually
had a right pull on this thing, because too many people could not figure out
how to use a door. A door is one of the simplest things that you could
possibly try to use, but when you put form over function, if you put the
wrong door, or it's too elegant, it's not clear how you use it, well that's
missing the point. So if you take a moment and try to think through, why is
it that we see form over function so much in the things we use, the
products we use just walking around in our daily lives. Why does this
happen? Clearly, this should not happen and so that form should follow
function. Deep down, I really want to emphasize the one thing that frankly
as founders, I think you need to spend a lot of time on, and that's
empathy. This is the thing that I admire, one of the things that I admired
the most about my time, both working at YC but also as a founder going
through Y Combinator back in 2008. It was sitting down with Paul Graham,
he would give us such incredible advice about specifically what are your
users thinking? What are they feeling? Why are they here? Really being
able to peel away the layers of I know we're sitting in a room looking at
this particular UI, but put yourself in the shoes of someone who has never
seen this before. This is something we'll come back to again and again.
One of the things that I put actually in my recommendations for design
resources and on its face, it's absurd, this is this depression era
book written by Dale Carnegie, a self help book. I actually think that it
should basically be required reading for founders. It's that one must
actually become genuinely interested in other people, you actually have to
see their point of view. You want to be able to be sympathetic, understand
what are their ideas, what do they understand and what do they actually
want. This goes back to YC itself. The first day you get into YC, you get a
tee shirt that says make something people want. I think, I don't know if
they still do this but do they, do you still get a tee shirt if you get an exit
that says, I made something people want? Yes, I need to get mine by the
way. Shoot, okay. Maybe that's why I haven't gotten mine yet. Okay. One of
the things that's really interesting about building highly
technological products is that we often think about them as incredibly
complicated machinery. The most useful mental model for me in what I've
been doing is actually to not think of it as building a car, or even building a
website, or writing software, or anything like that. It's actually about
throwing the best possible party you possibly can. So if you think about
great parties you've been to, there is no line. You're ushered right in, a
human being, ideally someone you know, someone who's very friendly comes
to you and says, "Hey, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Here are your
friends. Let me take your coat, beers are over here." That politeness, that
inviting welcome nature, that thoughtfulness, that's something that you
really have to keep in mind as you do your work as not just a designer, but
as a founder. The key piece here is actually knowing what problem you're
actually solving. Just being very crystal clear, and this is if I'm starting to
sound like a ... If I'm repeating myself, that in a nutshell is I think what
you're going to get over and over again at startup school is that really, how
do we be as crisp as possible about, here's the problem that we need to
solve. This is the core tenet of design thinking as well. So part of the
problem with not knowing what your problem is and going back to lack of
empathy, and going back to basically form over function is that if you don't
know who that user is, what their problem is, then you are in danger of
creating something like this. So if you, basically each of these do
talk about a particular product. They refer to a particular problem that
someone might have, but if you buy any of these products and you have
that problem you're trying to solve, now you have two problems. If
anything, each one of these inventions were created mainly to serve the
central problem of the inventor, of the inventor wanting something to solve.
So this is the opposite again, just to give more examples, this is
the opposite of empathy. This is something, this is you putting novelty,
putting one zone interests ahead of your users, of society, of the people
around you. So at the end of the day, if there's no problem, then there's no
solution. It ends up being designed for its own sake and design for its own
sake isn't designed, it's art. There's nothing wrong with art. I love art, but
that's not what we're here for actually. It's founders creating things that
people don't actually need, engineers do this too. Make stuff that we think
we need and then actually it's not better, it's not novel, it's not something
that other people actually want, and that's a problem. So there are so many
types of design, it's no mistake that some of the most obvious examples of
companies that are designed driven, they're actually hardware companies.
There are as many kinds of design as types of things that humans need, it's
no mistake by that. Architecture is absolutely a form of design, branding
and identity, communication design. Being able to communicate something
using data and iconography, or maps, or charts. Furniture design, a piece of
furniture easily has all the same mechanisms as anything else that a
human being might use. A landscape design, how does someone go into a
place, how do they use it, where do they know where to go? Packaging, so
how does this make me feel when this arrives on my doorstep if this is a
gift? Why is there a gift box anyway? What is the form and function of each
piece of this physical object? Transportation design, a car is one of the
most evocative things. It's your almost entirely pure emotion. For the
people in this room, I think these are probably the ones that are most
relevant to you, and we're going to spend a bunch of time talking about
that. So this is again an extreme oversimplification, but the way I would
break it down in terms of design for startups really is product design.
So what's the problem and who's it for? Interaction design, so how do we
actually do that? How do I actually create wireframes, create the flows,
create the intermediate step between that and the Pixel perfect, ready to
go, ready to implement thing? The visual design really is about that last
mile. Part of the reason why we divide this up this way, to be frank the
ideal is that you have a co founder on your team who is able to do all of
these. Then if they can co, that's amazing. If they can do business too,
that's incredible but that's obviously a unicorn. Unicorns are incredibly
rare, they do exist though and I'm sure there were a few unicorns in this
room as a matter of fact. Certainly quite a few watching online, so shout
out to the Unicorns in the room. Part of it is you will find very specific
people who have experience, and who are extremely good usually at one of
these things. If you can find someone who's good at a few of them, you're
really, really blessed. Man, if you can find someone who can do all of those
things, immediately make them a co founder but only if you've known them
for a while. Going back to the overall product process, there is a sequential
aspect to it. Truly you start with product design and each of these it really
is a little bit of a water flow sometimes. You really can't start interaction
design without actually capturing requirements. Then finally of course,
engineering. Ideally you're in conversation all the way through, but
engineering and actually implementation often that is something that
happens afterwards.