Product Sense & Empathy
Building the right thing for real people.
18 posts · Thinking & Decisions
- 1
Product Sense and Empathy: Build Things That Feel Obvious
Learn product sense and user empathy so the things you build feel obvious, not just functional. A practical guide for builders who want fewer confused users.
- 2
What Is Product Sense (And Can You Actually Learn It)?
Product sense is the reliable instinct for what to build and why it will matter. Here is what it really means, why it is learnable, and how to grow it.
- 3
User Empathy: How to Build Products People Actually Get
User empathy is the skill of seeing your product through the user's eyes. Learn why your own expertise destroys it and how to rebuild it on purpose.
- 4
Jobs To Be Done: Why People Hire Products to Make Progress
Jobs To Be Done explains why people don't want your product, they want progress. Learn JTBD, the milkshake story, and the four forces behind every switch.
- 5
Why Some Apps Feel Obvious (and Others Feel Like a Trap)
Some products feel obvious the moment you touch them. Learn how affordances, signifiers, and mental models make design feel effortless instead of confusing.
- 6
Why Your App Feels Broken (Even When the Code Works)
Your code works, but users still call it broken. Learn Don Norman's two gulfs and seven stages of action to find exactly where a screen confuses people.
- 7
Cognitive Load: Why Simple Design Feels Effortless
Cognitive load is the hidden reason some screens feel effortless and others make you quit. Learn the laws behind it and how to design for a tiny memory.
- 8
Make It Obvious: Defaults, Constraints & Discoverability
Most "user errors" are really design failures. Learn how smart defaults, constraints, and discoverability make the right action the obvious one.
- 9
Reducing Friction: Why Fewer Steps Win More Users
Learn how reducing friction with fewer steps, smart defaults, and progressive disclosure shortens the path to value and gets more people to finish.
- 10
Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics: A Plain-English Guide
Learn Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics in plain language and use them to catch costly interface problems early, cheaply, and without recruiting a single user.
- 11
Emotional Design: How to Build Products People Love
Emotional design is why people remember and recommend products. Learn Norman's three levels, the peak-end rule, and how to design real delight that lasts.
- 12
Why Great Products Feel Obvious: 8 Teardowns
Great products feel obvious because designers absorb the hard work first. See 8 teardowns of Google, iPhone, Stripe, and more to learn the repeatable recipe.
- 13
User Research for Beginners: The Mom Test and How to Watch
Learn user research the easy way: use The Mom Test to interview people without bias, watch users instead of asking, and turn real behavior into better products.
- 14
How to Build Product Sense: A Weekly Practice System
Product sense isn't a gift you're born with. Learn how to build product sense with a simple weekly practice system that compounds your intuition over time.
- 15
15 UX Anti-Patterns That Quietly Wreck Your Product
Most bad software dies by a thousand small cuts, not one blunder. Learn the UX anti-patterns and design mistakes that erode trust, and how to fix each.
- 16
The Product Sense Glossary Every Designer Should Know
A plain-language glossary of product sense and UX terms - affordances, mental models, Hick's Law, cognitive load, and more - explained with real examples.
- 17
Is Product Sense Born or Learned? Honest Answers
Is product sense something you're born with, or can you learn it? Honest answers about empathy, UX, and the skill behind products people love.
- 18
The UX Cheat Sheet to Read Before You Ship Any Screen
A fast, scannable UX cheat sheet of the laws, heuristics, and checks to run before you ship any screen - so users find it, read it, and know it worked.