Beauty

Occasionally, I discover products I feel strongly attached to. Yes, that product may do a certain job really well, but so do many others. Yes, a product may look gorgeous, but so do many others. There must be something else, I'm looking for. Something I can rarely find. Something more profoundly, expressed through one word:

Beauty.

Certainly, it's in the eye of the beholder (well, not everything), so here's a very subjective perspective.

Whenever I hold something in my hand, whether virtually or physically, I have that moment of sensation that I can and want to feel how much dedication went into the creation of that product. My brain feasts on the idea that one human being out there ‘went that extra mile’ to make this something truly stand out. Through source code, design, or business.

That sensation, which I can’t give a rational explanation for, makes me directly relate to the original creator of that product; I start feeling this human through the product because I feel that this person deeply cared. It makes me respond with care. That’s the beauty, the bond.

It’s the sensation when you deliver more than you have been asked for. Because you care. Like when you discover that the back-facing, hidden part of the furniture is also polished and varnished, which wouldn’t make economic sense, right? Steve Jobs' quote reflects this on point:

When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You'll know it's there, so you're going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.

Is beauty worth it? Isn’t it just time-consuming, costly ‘extra work’? Have you heard those questions recently in your company?

• “We never have time for this!”. Can beauty ever be part of work when there's only room to discuss operational efficiency?
• “That’s unnecessary!”. Can beauty ever be extraordinary when aesthetics don’t satisfy our rational brain?
• “I don’t care about these details!”. Can beauty ever blossom, when details never get polished?
• “It works already, so why bother!”. Isn’t it beauty which connects human beings rather than mere functionality?
• “But the job is already done!”. Where does beauty fit in when the job only means work?

I miss beauty. In many products out there. Every day.

To make room for beauty in your product company, start simple:

Talk literally about beauty.
Using the word beauty.

Say when something is indeed beautiful. Say when it is not. And don't rationally explain it. It does a lot of magic.