Start with Visuals
Mixed Martial Arts is well established today, but in 1993 when it all started, few people knew very much about real fighting. In fact, a boxer in the event, Art Jimmerson [1] wore one glove for the fight! That’s how lost the world was in terms of understanding what really worked in combat.
After that event, the fighting world was forever changed. In your life and career, you’ll have similar tectonic shifts in your thinking. Ideas and events that forever change not only your trajectory but your velocity as well. For me, one of those moments was when I first read Getting Real by 37 Signals. Back in the day, I treasured it so much that I had it bound at Kinkos!
Their simple book, now free online, showed me, among other things, a new way to build software. At the time, I had been deep in the bowels of a large enterprise company, focused on writing ‘business requirements documents’ in Microsoft Word and documenting processes in a flowcharting language called UML.
I thought I had it all figured out, or I at least felt I was on the right path. After all, the company where I worked was wildly successful — we had to be doing it right! I could not have been more wrong. I not only didn’t know what I was doing, but I was learning all the wrong things.
“Your conclusions were all wrong.” — Marko Ramius, The Hunt for Red October
One of the lessons in Getting Real that I found most useful in building products was called ‘Interface First’. Here is the main concept, from the chapter.
“Too many apps start with a program-first mentality. That’s a bad idea. Programming is the heaviest component of building an app, meaning it’s the most expensive and hardest to change. Instead, start by designing first. (…) The interface is your product. What people see is what you’re selling. If you just slap an interface on at the end, the gaps will show.” — Getting Real
The interface is your product. Boom! Mic dropped. What a powerful idea! For me, it clarified the importance of design while simultaneously rebooting my backward approach to defining software.
Fast forward almost two decades and I still use their simple idea every day. In fact, our team now starts all product ideas with interfaces first, but, it wasn’t always this way. As we waded into this model, product managers felt unmoored in design sessions and designers were squirming in their chairs as non-designers shared their opinions. Everyone had to embrace the new worldview that we are all designers now — role and title aside.
The next time you have a project or feature in mind, ditch the word documents. Instead, involve everyone and start with the interface. Use paper and pen, Sketch, Figma, Keynote — whatever is comfortable and fast.
Once a form takes hold, share the direction early. It helps to have a standing weekly meeting to bring down the level of formality. Be sure to make it light and fun. There should be zero expectations of perfection. These events are low on pressure and high on conversation. Feedback and ideas can come from anywhere — hierarchy and prescribed roles aren’t well adhered to. As you go, increase fidelity with confidence.
After a few weeks of these meetings, the team will feel safer and new ideas will show up on the agenda. Over time, you’ll see a more cohesive, thoughtful product take shape, but perhaps more critically, a new product culture will emerge.
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Footnotes:
“I’d never heard of Royce, I’d never even heard of jiu-jitsu. I never imagined I would be wrestling a guy on the floor.” Art Jimmerson