Design thinking
Products people love to use
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There was a time when making something that worked well was enough. I remember when the ING banking app launched in 2011. It was a genuinely different experience — simple, fast, and it made something previously frustrating feel effortless. That felt like a high bar at the time.
It is not a high bar anymore. Good functionality and a clean interface are now the baseline. Every category has multiple products that work well. The question is no longer whether your product works. It is whether people actually want to use it.
Need versus want
Most products fall into one of two categories: things people have to use, and things people choose to use. The first category is crowded and uncomfortable. The second is where loyalty lives.
People do not just buy products. They buy into things that fit how they see themselves, or how they want to live. That does not mean every product needs to be aspirational in an obvious way. It means that when someone picks your product over an alternative — or keeps coming back to it — there is usually something at work beyond pure functionality.
A useful way to think about this is the UX Pyramid. At the base: does it work, and can I trust it? Those are the non-negotiables. In the middle: is it easy and convenient to use? Still expected. At the top: does it give me something meaningful, or make me feel something? That is where the real differentiation happens. And increasingly, you need to be working at all levels simultaneously.
Four questions worth asking
Over the years I have used a simple scorecard to pressure-test whether a product idea is on the right track. Four questions, applied honestly.
Does it solve the problem?
Not the problem you assumed exists, but the one the user actually has. These are not always the same thing.
Does it live up to expectations?
Once someone starts using it, does it do what it promised? Trust is built slowly and lost quickly.
Is it easier than the alternative?
Not just easier than doing nothing — easier than whatever people are doing right now. That is the real competition.
Does it add something to the person's life?
Not just utility. Something they would miss if it disappeared.
A product that got it right from the start
HelloFresh is a good example of a product that answered all four questions well, from day one. The problem — "what do I cook tonight, and do I have everything I need?" — is real and daily. The trust is built into the model: quality ingredients, delivered when promised. The friction of shopping and meal planning is removed. And there is genuine value added — new recipes, new techniques, a small sense of discovery at the end of a busy day.
That combination is why they became a household name while most of their competitors remained niche. They were not just convenient. They were genuinely good to use.
Aim for the top
With so many well-made products in every category, functionality alone no longer creates loyalty. The products people keep coming back to — and recommend to others — are the ones that made them feel something. Understood, capable, delighted, at ease.
That does not happen by accident. It happens when you understand your users well enough to design for how they actually live, not just what they technically need to do.