Lesson 4: Building Things People Actually Use
Building Things People Actually Use
Every failed app had a team of people who thought it was a great idea. The graveyard of technology is full of things that made sense to the people who built them and made no sense to anyone else. The gap between this seems like a good idea and people actually want this is where most tech projects die.
Start With the Problem, Not the Solution
The single biggest mistake in tech: falling in love with your solution before you understand the problem. You come up with a cool idea, get attached to it, build it, and then discover nobody needed it. The fix is simple. Talk to the people you are building for BEFORE you build anything.
The MVP
MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. What is the smallest, simplest version of this thing that still solves the core problem? Build that first. Get feedback. Improve. Build again. This is called iteration and it is how every successful tech product in history was actually built.
User Empathy
The best tech leaders spend time being the user. They watch actual users struggle with things they thought were obvious. They design for the person who is tired, distracted, and does not read instructions, because that is every user, always.
Try This Today
- Think of a problem in your school or community that technology could help solve
- Describe the MVP, the absolute simplest version that would still be useful
- Interview one person who has this problem and just listen to how they describe it