Silicon Valley Uncovered: Dave McClure on why design is more important than technology

@Tim Acheson Well, imagine a phone without an interface. Would be useless as well. Thing is, you need both technology and design for a product to be useful. Both are important with regards to usefulness, but what Dave argues is that design is often more important to differentiate your product from existing ones.

@Tim Acheson
I’m not arguing what’s usuable, I’m arguing what’s differential.

There are thousands of phones on the market with a subpar design, but it’s the one with a great design that get adoption.

Of course in new or less competitive industries you don’t need to differentiate, but in the ones you do great design often seems to be one of the ways to do so.

( Just to clarify: with design I mean anything that relates to the interaction between the user and the underlying technology. )

@marckohlbrugge It’s true that good UX is key to adoption. Technology is an essential prerequisite. In fact, its technology that facilitates the UX. If people don’t see how fundamental the technology is in facilitating the UX, that’s testimony to the quality of the technology as well as the “design”.