{"id":19879,"date":"2019-04-15T17:07:07","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T16:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/?p=19879"},"modified":"2020-07-30T12:54:41","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T11:54:41","slug":"what-should-designers-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-should-designers-ship\/","title":{"rendered":"What should designers ship?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the product design principles we have at Intercom is \u201cWhat you ship is what matters.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But what do you ship? It\u2019s a fundamental question that every product designer needs to ask themselves.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Yuriy-What-You-Ship-Dropshadow.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There are three potential answers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cI ship design.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI ship a product.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI ship a business outcome.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Designers who say that they ship design might often feel frustrated. In a lot of cases it seems like all other disciplines are working against them \u2013 engineers don\u2019t care about pixel perfection, product managers always present them with business constraints, and so on.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>&#8220;Shipping a good product is a constant balancing act between different constraints and the limitations of the real world&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cOh, these people just don\u2019t understand how important good design is!\u201d one would say. But this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/the-end-of-navel-gazing\/\">design-centric perspective is limiting<\/a>, as our SVP of Product Paul Adams explained in this great talk.<\/p>\n<p>Designers who say that they ship product understand that design is just one of the ingredients. It\u2019s neither more nor less important than great engineering, great marketing, great sales, great research or great product management.<\/p>\n<p>Shipping a good product is a constant balancing act between different constraints and the limitations of the real world. Designers who ship product understand that design doesn\u2019t exist in the vacuum.<\/p>\n<p>As our co-founder and CSO Des Traynor often points out to us: \u201cA mediocre product can win big in a great market. A great product can lose in a bad market. Market always wins.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-two\"><p>&#8220;Design is not an outcome in itself, but rather a tool for producing results for business&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Designers who say that they ship business outcomes understand that great design and great product are important, but there are businesses that succeed without those two being great.<\/p>\n<p>Shipping a business outcome means thinking from a business perspective and that is a perspective of measurable and quantifiable results. After all, design is not an outcome in itself, but rather a tool for producing results for business. This is when design can prove itself valuable, strategic and truly meaningful.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shipping a good product is a constant balancing act between different constraints and the limitations of the real world. Designers need to know what they&#8217;re shipping to get the balance right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":349,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"category":[5],"tags":[83,153],"coauthors":[12219],"class_list":["post-19879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-product-and-design","tag-design","tag-product-design"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What should designers ship? - The Intercom Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Shipping a good product is a constant balancing act between different constraints. Designers need to know what they&#039;re shipping to get the balance right.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-should-designers-ship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What should designers ship?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Shipping a good product is a constant balancing act between different constraints. Designers need to know what they&#039;re shipping to get the balance right.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-should-designers-ship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Intercom Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/intercominc\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-04-15T16:07:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-07-30T11:54:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Yuriy-What-You-Ship-Dropshadow.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Yuriy Oparenko\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Oparenko\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@intercom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Yuriy Oparenko\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-should-designers-ship\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-should-designers-ship\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Yuriy Oparenko\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2d6afee502959f25031d02d8b8d74d19\"},\"headline\":\"What should designers ship?\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-15T16:07:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-07-30T11:54:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-should-designers-ship\/\"},\"wordCount\":350,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-should-designers-ship\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Yuriy-What-You-Ship-Dropshadow.png\",\"keywords\":[\"design\",\"product design\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Product &amp; Design\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-should-designers-ship\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-should-designers-ship\/\",\"name\":\"What should designers ship? - The Intercom Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-should-designers-ship\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-should-designers-ship\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Yuriy-What-You-Ship-Dropshadow.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-15T16:07:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-07-30T11:54:41+00:00\",\"description\":\"Shipping a good product is a constant balancing act between different constraints. 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