The Nonlinear Library LW - Designing for a single purpose by Itay Dreyfus
May 8, 2024
16:26
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Designing for a single purpose, published by Itay Dreyfus on May 8, 2024 on LessWrong.
If you've ever been to Amsterdam, you've probably visited, or at least heard about the famous cookie store that sells only one cookie. I mean, not a piece, but a single flavor.
I'm talking about
Van Stapele Koekmakerij of course - where you can get one of the world's most delicious chocolate chip cookies. If not arriving at opening hour, it's likely to find a long queue extending from the store's doorstep through the street it resides. When I visited the city a few years ago, I watched the sensation myself: a nervous crowd awaited as the rumor of 'out of stock' cookies spreaded across the line.
The store, despite becoming a landmark for tourists, stands for an idea that seems to be forgotten in our culture: crafting for a single purpose.
In the tech scene where I'm coming from, and which you might too, this approach is often perceived as singular, and not in its positiveness. We've been taught to go big or go home - raise millions in funding, build a big company, hire more and more employees, and hope for the desired exit.
Anything less is considered a mind of a failure.
From a personal perspective I've seen this attitude in almost every branding session I ran with startup founders. Again and again, they struggled to distill their primary focus. Moreover, when discussing competitors, it often seemed their startup competed in every possible field.
In a way, that fear of committing reflects the human nature of FOMO - deliberately giving up on something(s) and experiencing the potential loss of other benefits.
This mindset has also seeped into our collective body of work, especially in software. A product, which often starts as a weird small creature, gradually evolves into a multi-arm octopus, which sadly became the norm for
VCware
1.
And so we've been left with bloated, bigger, and… worse software.
The idea of maintaining a small scope in product has already appeared in my writing in various forms; in
niche product design I explored the effect of growth on design; and
in defense of Twitter, I wrote about the bloated era of incumbent culture. But in between there seems to be a different attitude that not many choose to embrace, which like in Van Stapele's case, seeks a real purpose.
Going back to basics as a way to find purpose
In a tweet posted a few months ago,
Jeff Sheldon described his renewed approach to photography after getting a new camera. It enlightened my eyes:
I'm not a professional photographer, and never been. But my beloved Canon 700D still serves me often while traveling. Besides learning about ISO and shutter speed settings, being familiar with the mechanics of a DSLR camera has also introduced me to the practice of shooting photos in RAW format, which means capturing photos at the highest quality level.
But the super heavy file format marks only the start of the process in modern photography. The rest belongs to the post-processing act: the daunting work of polishing, enhancing, and fixing images.
When I returned from vacation, I hoped to edit my captures. Then I noticed something weird. When comparing my photos to some stunning photos I saw online, it seemed like my camera output wasn't as good as those shared photos. In doubt of my gear I then, again, noticed something I should have probably known: it wasn't about the camera, but the editing.
I realized professional-made photos were overly edited, often detached from their original conditions. It appeared that what you see isn't what you get.
I wondered, has photography become an art of photo manipulation?
To respectful photographers, this might appear like a false accusation. The time spent sitting in front of the photo editor is at the heart of many camera enthusiasts. After all, that's why a camera is set to sh...
If you've ever been to Amsterdam, you've probably visited, or at least heard about the famous cookie store that sells only one cookie. I mean, not a piece, but a single flavor.
I'm talking about
Van Stapele Koekmakerij of course - where you can get one of the world's most delicious chocolate chip cookies. If not arriving at opening hour, it's likely to find a long queue extending from the store's doorstep through the street it resides. When I visited the city a few years ago, I watched the sensation myself: a nervous crowd awaited as the rumor of 'out of stock' cookies spreaded across the line.
The store, despite becoming a landmark for tourists, stands for an idea that seems to be forgotten in our culture: crafting for a single purpose.
In the tech scene where I'm coming from, and which you might too, this approach is often perceived as singular, and not in its positiveness. We've been taught to go big or go home - raise millions in funding, build a big company, hire more and more employees, and hope for the desired exit.
Anything less is considered a mind of a failure.
From a personal perspective I've seen this attitude in almost every branding session I ran with startup founders. Again and again, they struggled to distill their primary focus. Moreover, when discussing competitors, it often seemed their startup competed in every possible field.
In a way, that fear of committing reflects the human nature of FOMO - deliberately giving up on something(s) and experiencing the potential loss of other benefits.
This mindset has also seeped into our collective body of work, especially in software. A product, which often starts as a weird small creature, gradually evolves into a multi-arm octopus, which sadly became the norm for
VCware
1.
And so we've been left with bloated, bigger, and… worse software.
The idea of maintaining a small scope in product has already appeared in my writing in various forms; in
niche product design I explored the effect of growth on design; and
in defense of Twitter, I wrote about the bloated era of incumbent culture. But in between there seems to be a different attitude that not many choose to embrace, which like in Van Stapele's case, seeks a real purpose.
Going back to basics as a way to find purpose
In a tweet posted a few months ago,
Jeff Sheldon described his renewed approach to photography after getting a new camera. It enlightened my eyes:
I'm not a professional photographer, and never been. But my beloved Canon 700D still serves me often while traveling. Besides learning about ISO and shutter speed settings, being familiar with the mechanics of a DSLR camera has also introduced me to the practice of shooting photos in RAW format, which means capturing photos at the highest quality level.
But the super heavy file format marks only the start of the process in modern photography. The rest belongs to the post-processing act: the daunting work of polishing, enhancing, and fixing images.
When I returned from vacation, I hoped to edit my captures. Then I noticed something weird. When comparing my photos to some stunning photos I saw online, it seemed like my camera output wasn't as good as those shared photos. In doubt of my gear I then, again, noticed something I should have probably known: it wasn't about the camera, but the editing.
I realized professional-made photos were overly edited, often detached from their original conditions. It appeared that what you see isn't what you get.
I wondered, has photography become an art of photo manipulation?
To respectful photographers, this might appear like a false accusation. The time spent sitting in front of the photo editor is at the heart of many camera enthusiasts. After all, that's why a camera is set to sh...