The Hunt For Constraints

“Embrace constraints”. It’s a principle that comes from the design world, and it says this:

Constraints are helpful. Constraints force to you get clear on what matters, to imagine your way out of your struggle, to get better ideas, to innovate.

For example, time constraints help you deliver more quickly. Budget constraints help you make the best of what you’ve got. Constraints on team size help you communicate and be understood.

This AI age just tore through a lot of the old constraints. You can do more as a solo person, you can learn everything you need to learn, you can build what you need with the budget you have.

So now, where are the new constraints?

Let’s look at a few universal constraints, that remain firmly in place.

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Struggle vs. New Future. Help someone make progress, away from a place of struggle and toward a new future with the struggle removed. This is, of course, the constraint you want to remove for your buyer. This constraint gives you important information: just before the buyer makes a choice to invest effort to solve their problem, what is inhabit their thoughts? This is the time when your product will appear most useful. Find the moments of struggle.

Impossible vs. Possible. In UI design, every option should not be presented equally. Some options should be front-and-center, some options should be hidden yet possible, and some options should not be made possible at all. Friction need not be removed on every transaction. Find out what should be made possible and obvious, so that people who see your app know right away if it’ll help them make progress.

Alone vs. Together. People want independence, but only up to a point. Surely, there comes a point when working alone no longer works, and people seek the comfort of belonging to a group. Find the moments when people seek solitude vs. belonging to a group, and create the missing experiences.

Serious vs. Fun. There isn’t a monopoly on serious business, and there isn’t a monopoly on fun either. “I was yearning for a little bit more fun in my work.” Find where there needs to be rigor and process, and find where there needs to be more lightheardedness, and create surprising new products.

Expensive vs. Affordable. You can’t compete with a 10-fold price difference. But price offers clues about quality, capacity, speed and availability. A low price can’t offer it all. Find options that you can offer at different price ranges, and create competing alternatives that help the buyer make a decision on trade-offs.

“I have to” vs. “I want to”. There’s a limit to the amount of hard work a person will tolerate. They’ll hit that limit, and then they’ll find a way to delegate that work, to replace it with work they enjoy. It’s hard to compete with enthusiasm. Find out what your buyers would rather do with their time, and help them get there.

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These universal constraints might have moved from where they used to be, but they continue to exist. Hunt down the constraints affecting your people, and make some new products.