For developers / Field notes
Stop building features.
Start watching people.
A few notes from building products, designing interactions, and watching how people actually use things.
I design motion.
But motion taught me to watch behaviour.
And behaviour changed how I think about products.
-
01
Watch what people repeat
Repetition is a product signal.
What do people do every day?
What do they keep searching for?
What takes five steps every single time?
Don't start with an idea.
Start with a repeated behaviour. -
02
Build around the action
The user doesn't care about your feature list.
They came to crop an image.
Send money.
Learn a word.
Finish something.
Find the action they came for.
Build everything else around it. -
03
Friction is sometimes the idea
Watch where people get tired.
Copying between tools.
Opening five tabs.
Repeating the same setup.
Explaining the same thing again.
Developers often call these small problems.
Small problems repeated daily become products. -
04
Don't build the whole idea
Find the smallest useful moment.
One action.
One result.
One reason to return.
Build that first.
A product doesn't need to feel big.
It needs to feel useful. -
05
People explain less than they show
Watch activity, not only feedback.
Users say they want features.
Their behaviour shows what they actually need.
Where do they stop?
What do they repeat?
What do they ignore?
Activity is feedback without a meeting. -
06
Ship before you feel ready
Your private version teaches you nothing.
Put the idea where someone can touch it.
One real user can break a week of assumptions in five minutes.
That's useful.
The product starts teaching you after you release it. -
07
Build from curiosity
You don't need a billion-dollar idea.
Notice something.
Question it.
Make a small version.
Watch what happens.
Then decide what deserves more of your time.
That's how I build.
A note from Praneeth
Watch people.
Find the friction.
Build the useful part.
I don't have every answer.
These are simply things I've learned while moving between design, interaction, and my own product ideas.
UI Animation. CropFiles. Mascot Engine.
Different ideas.
The same curiosity.
Praneeth Kawya Thathsara
Field notes / Sri Lanka