“Product Taste” in practice
Semantic colors, ditching OKRs, printing books, Sonic UX, removing features that clutter the UI... Examples from companies like Figma, Lovable, Perplexity, Stripe and more. DoP Deep Dive.
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When Linear’s CEO said this last year, it certainly raised a few eyebrows:
In his eyes, the era of growth hacking your way to success was over - and in its place was a new chapter where product teams should focus on craft and quality.
Since then, OpenAI’s former head of research recently predicted that thanks to the disruptive power of AI, companies will increasingly need to differentiate through network effects and brand rather than proprietary models. And in a post by tech investor Sarah Guo, she claimed that “in a world where AI can instantly generate a CRUD app or replicate any website, taste becomes the final differentiator”.
It’s certainly an interesting hypothesis that on the face of it makes a lot of sense. When resource constraints are dramatically reduced and teams are capable of building pretty much anything they like, product teams are given more creative freedom to make bolder decisions about how their product feels to users. Embracing a sense of craftsmanship and “taste” is essential in this context.
In this DoP Deep dive, we’ll explore this concept of product taste in practice. We’ll take a look at some real world examples of how companies are introducing and upholding a sense of product taste with examples from Figma, Linear, Notion, Lovable, Stripe, Perplexity and others.
If you’re interested in learning about what product taste means in leading tech companies - and developing your own sense of product taste - this deep dive should help.
Coming up:
25+ real-world examples of how companies like Figma, Stripe, Perplexity, and ElevenLabs are embedding taste into everything from hiring processes to product features
Why one company refuses to ship MVPs - only polished V1s that meet their quality bar. A fully downloadable company handbook on how this works in practice
Instacart's "sonic DNA" and the lengths companies go to craft experiences (hint: it involves snapping real carrots by hand)
The strict hiring practices at Linear, Notion and Figma that ensure only candidates with innate product taste make it through the door
The examples featured in full
How this deep dive is structured
Here’s a snapshot of how this deep dive is structured along with a preview of some of the examples of product taste:
Product taste in practice example - the specific example of how a company creates a culture with high product taste.
Company - includes some of the world’s leading tech companies including Stripe, Figma, Linear, Perplexity as well as newer AI startups like Lovable and ElevenLabs.
Taste category - each example of product taste is categorized into distinct, different categories - more on that below.
How it works - a description of how exactly this example of product taste works in practice.
A breakdown of the categories included
This Deep dive includes over 25 different examples of product taste and each of these examples is categorized into distinct categories. While aesthetics and design choices are often the go-to for examples of product taste, this analysis also includes other examples of other ways companies embed product taste throughout their processes and strategy.
Process and principles - some companies have ditched OKRs and growth tactics in favor of quality and taste, others develop principles like “making over meta-work” where craft and taste is demonstrated by making things, not just talking about them.
Products and features - building specific features can create a strong impression of product taste. For example, DuoLingo’s insistence on thoughtful notifications and not bombarding users or Airbnb’s new design language are examples of opinionated features.
Strategy - strategic decisions like choosing to give different products in a portfolio different brand personalities can convey product taste.
Design - design choices across branding, UX, typography and other areas are all ways companies develop a sense of taste that enhances the overall experience for users.