The only question that matters

I’ve been designing apps and products for over two decades now, and I keep coming back to the same realization: most of what we do is just answering questions.

Think about it. When someone opens Spotify, they’re asking “what should I listen to right now?” When they check their bank app, it’s “how much money do I have?” Open Google Maps and the question is obvious: “how do I get there?”

The best products answer your question fast

The best products answer these questions fast and without friction. The mediocre ones make you work for it.

Take Greenely, where I have been consulting recently as a product designer. The users open the app asking “when should I use electricity to save money?” We could show them complex charts and data tables. Instead, we show a simple graph with green and red labels. Done. Question answered in three seconds.

Compare that to most B2B tools I’ve used. Project management software where you’re asking “what should I work on today?” but you have to click through five views, filter three lists, and check two calendars to figure it out. The question is simple. The answer shouldn’t be hard to find.

Even something like Slack. The core question is “what did I miss?” but how many times have you scrolled through channels trying to piece together what actually matters? The question is clear. The answer gets buried in noise.

This applies to B2B just as much as consumer apps. When someone logs into an analytics dashboard, they’re asking “is my business doing okay?” When they open a CRM, it’s “who should I follow up with?” When they use an invoicing tool, the question is “did they pay me yet?”

The products that win are the ones that answer fastest.

What about Netflix?

Now, entertainment is different. Netflix isn’t really answering a question, it’s filling time. Even though you might ask yourself “What should I watch next?”. Games create their own questions and then let you solve them. But for everything else, for the apps people actually need, it comes down to this: what question is your user asking, and how fast can you answer it?

The tricky part isn’t identifying the question. Users will tell you what they need. The hard part is resisting the urge to show everything you built. All those features you spent months on? Most of them just get in the way of the answer.

Every screen, every click, every piece of information you add should either help answer the core question or get out of the way. If it doesn’t do either, cut it.

That’s the formula. Find the question. Answer it fast. Remove everything else.