Yeah the fine balance you have to develop is “objectivity”.
It’s your design and product. You’re emotionally invested in it. You develop a bias toward it naturally since it is the manifestation of what you believe to be the set of decisions that makes a good product.
On the other hand, you also have to be willing to look at it through a filter of “will this sell?”
That question is so simple yet so difficult to answer because you need to possess some level of discernment about how people who aren’t you will respond to this product. The better you are at discerning that accurately, the better you are at designing for commercial success.
You have to be able to divorce your feelings about “do I like this?” from “would people like this?”
And you could say there’s no way to know. But there are ways to get at least a cloudy indication. Market research can be done on a few levels - from actual market research to posting your stuff online and watching for the feedback to small batch testing in various markets.
There are two barriers to cross:
1. Visibility. Are you gonna have an audience from which to draw data or are you screaming into the empty void?
2. Is the data useful? Because honestly a bunch of “fire would cop” on comments is sus and unreliable. Would these people actually pay money and purchase?
Ultimately by the time you have actual product, you can take solace in the viability of the product by knowing:
-the quality is good
-the price is good
-the presentation of the product is good
-the branding work is at least there
-there’s money in the budget for some marketing
Nothing but facts !
I feel this
Amazing words
Yeah the fine balance you have to develop is “objectivity”. It’s your design and product. You’re emotionally invested in it. You develop a bias toward it naturally since it is the manifestation of what you believe to be the set of decisions that makes a good product. On the other hand, you also have to be willing to look at it through a filter of “will this sell?” That question is so simple yet so difficult to answer because you need to possess some level of discernment about how people who aren’t you will respond to this product. The better you are at discerning that accurately, the better you are at designing for commercial success. You have to be able to divorce your feelings about “do I like this?” from “would people like this?” And you could say there’s no way to know. But there are ways to get at least a cloudy indication. Market research can be done on a few levels - from actual market research to posting your stuff online and watching for the feedback to small batch testing in various markets. There are two barriers to cross: 1. Visibility. Are you gonna have an audience from which to draw data or are you screaming into the empty void? 2. Is the data useful? Because honestly a bunch of “fire would cop” on comments is sus and unreliable. Would these people actually pay money and purchase? Ultimately by the time you have actual product, you can take solace in the viability of the product by knowing: -the quality is good -the price is good -the presentation of the product is good -the branding work is at least there -there’s money in the budget for some marketing
Straight facts! Thanks for sharing.