Don't miss this article from Dom & Tom Co-Founder Dominic Tancredi what the theater taught him about great product design. 🎭
CEO | Design and implement digital solutions to transform your business | Over 500 clients such as Bloomberg, Samsung, NBA and more
What does product development have to do with the theater? I’m a former theater guy, and a 20-year veteran of the digital product development space. They have more in common than you think. With both product design and development and the theater, you’re building an immersive world for your users or audiences to inhabit. For the experience to work, it needs to be cohesive, considered, and consistent. And ideally, it needs to make a connection to them - catharsis. In other words, they both need to tell a clear story to be successful. I recently saw a kickass play that achieved this perfectly: "An Enemy of the People." by Henrik Ibsen. This powerful drama, set in Scandinavia, revolves around a man who uncovers a serious issue with his town’s water supply. I was familiar with the story, having performed in this play during my student days in Chicago - though I'm more of a Strindberg, "The Ghost Sonata" man myself. What makes this production truly immersive is its approach to audience interaction. [Spoilers] In a pivotal scene, there’s a town hall meeting about water quality. In a creative twist, a bar is lowered from the ceiling, and the audience is invited to step onto the stage, order a drink—water or akvavit, a traditional Scandinavian liquor—and join the town’s discourse. For a few moments, you're not just watching the play; you're part of it. This blend of engagement and entertainment creates a memorable, enriching experience that parallels the very best in product design. Effective digital products craft immersive universes where users feel genuinely valued and supported. On the other hand, think about how it feels to hear a cell phone going off in the theater. You’re ripped out of the experience, jerked back into reality. A bad in-product experience - like a slow load time, inaccurate or inconsistent results, bad design - does the same thing to your users. It jolts them out of the experience you’ve worked so hard to try to build and makes them lose trust in your product. You don’t want to do that to your user. At Dom & Tom, we’ll help you make sure you don’t. Learn more in my recent blog: https://lnkd.in/gaES8HZv 🤖
