The Link Between Brand and Utility
I like this thought from Andrew Crow, head of design at Uber, on the difference between being scrappy and shipping scrappy:
There’s no such thing as minimal viable quality. Each product iteration must stem from a principled approach of creating great experiences regardless of scale or milestone. If it’s a mockup, the level of fidelity typically indicates the level of “doneness”. If it’s a prototype, the level of detail needs to be appropriately matched to the sophistication of the hypothesis you’re testing. If it’s an MVP, the quality put into the product must be at a level that results in the maximum learning for that stage of development. The quality of product you finally ship reflects the caliber of your company and is a measure of the respect you have for your customer.
I think of this as being thoughtful. Every interaction you design should be made with care and respect for the user’s time and attention. Details make design and there isn’t a detail too small to pay attention to.
As Andrew points out, not spending the time and attention on details at early stages can be detrimental in unexpected ways as it might provide you with bad data back on usage (ultimately design choices and brand effect experiences). I think there’s an important lesson here that most people don’t consider (and came up in the old brand vs utility debate). Ultimately things like brand, utility, and design in products are entirely too closely coupled to disconnect. In fact, utility is actually a measure of the relative satisfaction a person gets from consuming something. Since satisfaction is about how much something fulfills your expectations, the utility and brand are inextricably linked.