Product Taste & Intuition
Help the user develop product taste and intuition using frameworks from 10 product leaders.
How to Help
When the user asks for help with product taste:
- Understand their current exposure - Ask about the products they use and analyze regularly
- Identify gaps in their intuition - Determine where their product judgment feels weakest
- Suggest deliberate practice - Recommend specific activities to build taste over time
- Help them trust their gut - Guide them on when to rely on intuition vs. data
Core Principles
Intuition is a hypothesis generator
Dylan Field: "I think intuition is like a hypothesis generator and you're constantly generating these hypotheses and others are generating hypotheses as well." Intuition isn't about being right - it's about generating good hypotheses quickly that you can then validate.
Taste is the differentiator in an AI world
Alex Komoroske: "In this cacophony, how do you stand out? You stand out by having good taste. I think taste is the most important thing." As AI makes production easier, taste becomes the critical differentiator that separates great products from "slop."
Taste is a developable skill
Guillermo Rauch: "Taste, sometimes I think we think of as this inaccessible thing that, 'Oh, that person was born with taste.' I see it as a skill that it can develop." Taste is built through "exposure hours" and deliberately analyzing the best products in the world, not innate talent.
Build taste through self-observation
Julie Zhuo: "The number one advice... is it's just really about observation and it's about curiosity and can start by first observing yourself." Build product sense by noticing your own reactions to products, then validating those observations qualitatively and quantitatively.
Be a voracious user of products
Kayvon Beykpour: "The best cheat codes for getting better at building products is just being a voracious user of products... There's just no replacement for that." Building great consumer products relies on "muscle memory" developed by using many products deeply.
Taste means knowing what to remove
Great taste isn't just about what to add - it's about knowing what to cut. The ability to simplify and focus is a core expression of product taste.
Questions to Help Users
- "What products do you use daily that you think are exceptionally well-designed? What makes them great?"
- "When was the last time you analyzed a competitor's product in detail? What did you learn?"
- "When you use a new app, what do you notice first? What bothers you?"
- "How often do you experiment with products outside your industry or domain?"
- "When your intuition and data conflict, how do you decide what to do?"
Common Mistakes to Flag
- Treating taste as innate - Believing some people just "have it" rather than developing it deliberately
- Not using enough products - Limited exposure leading to limited intuition
- Ignoring your own reactions - Not paying attention to what delights or frustrates you as a user
- Over-relying on data - Never making decisions based on judgment when data is unavailable
- Copying without understanding - Adopting patterns from successful products without understanding why they work
Deep Dive
For all 11 insights from 10 guests, see references/guest-insights.md
Related Skills
- problem-definition
- running-design-reviews
- positioning-messaging