Product Design Advice from Google Ventures  

Good post from Braden Kowitz. Lots of sense in there and it’s a short read. I really liked this bit:

It’s tempting to think that you can outsource product design: hire someone who goes away, does some design work, and returns with a magical solution. But because product design is so complex, it can’t be outsourced and solved in isolation. Great design requires the knowledge and experience of everyone on the team.

This applies to ANY design effort, IMHO. It doesn’t mean you can’t bring in folks to help you out—clearly, given who’s writing this—but it needs to be a true team effort.

One thing I’ll never get, though, is calling out visual design.

Often when people think about design, they think about the surface visual design. But early in a startup, visual design is probably the least of your worries.

Is that really true? Is there so much confusion about what design is that we can’t just roll visual design in as a part of the basics of what you need to get a product going? I don’t dispute his point, I’m just not sure why it still needs to be made. Then again, I guess he would know. :)