{"id":28473,"date":"2023-01-17T15:31:55","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T15:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/?p=28473"},"modified":"2025-01-03T13:22:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T13:22:18","slug":"intercom-product-principles-opinionated-by-default-flexible-under-hood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/intercom-product-principles-opinionated-by-default-flexible-under-hood\/","title":{"rendered":"Intercom&#8217;s product principles: Building product that&#8217;s opinionated by default, but flexible under the hood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Designing a product is a balancing act.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At Intercom, we balance strong opinions about the future of customer support with our goal of meeting a huge variety of customer needs. Some customers want a simple, out-of-the-box solution, but others need customizability \u2013 that\u2019s where flexibility comes in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>\u201cOpinionated by default and flexible under the hood means our solutions are easy to use out of the box, but can be customized to suit specific needs\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Opinionated by default and flexible under the hood means our solutions are easy to use out of the box, but can be customized to suit specific needs. This balance between opinionated design and flexibility is crucial for creating products that are both functional and appealing to users.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A product that\u2019s too rigid and inflexible may be difficult to use and fail to meet the needs of some users \u2013 while a product that is too flexible and lacks a strong vision may be confusing and difficult to navigate. By striking the right balance between these two extremes, we design a product that\u2019s both effective and user-friendly. But sometimes keeping this balance is quite a challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"applying-this-principle-to-our-work\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Applying this principle to our work<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s usually easier to apply this principle to individual feature levels and interaction design, where we express our opinions through defaults, templates, and education, rather than restrictions. This means we offer our customers a default behavior for a clear and easily adopted solution, but also include customization options to allow customers to tailor product behavior based on their needs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Examples include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Offering defaults and templates when creating outbound messages\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enabling different filters on reports (e.g. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/support-ticketing-system\/\">Tickets report<\/a>)\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The option to build a custom report\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Allowing custom data attributes on top of default standard ones<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28479 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Custom-report.png\" alt=\"Custom report\" width=\"1200\" height=\"816\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Custom-report.png 1200w, https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Custom-report-300x204.png 300w, https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Custom-report-700x476.png 700w, https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Custom-report-768x522.png 768w, https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Custom-report-600x408.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Measure what&#8217;s important to your team when you build a custom report<\/em><\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28480 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/defaults-and-templates-for-outbound-messages.png\" alt=\"defaults and templates for outbound messages\" width=\"1200\" height=\"892\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/defaults-and-templates-for-outbound-messages.png 1200w, https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/defaults-and-templates-for-outbound-messages-300x223.png 300w, https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/defaults-and-templates-for-outbound-messages-700x520.png 700w, https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/defaults-and-templates-for-outbound-messages-768x571.png 768w, https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/defaults-and-templates-for-outbound-messages-600x446.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Choose from a range of templates, or create your own outbound message from scratch<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"striking-the-balance-within-a-complex-product\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Striking the balance within a complex product<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The principle is easy to follow when your product is small or the problem you\u2019re solving is narrow, but it gets more challenging when you start designing something more complex \u2013 like a whole new product area or a capability that should work across several product areas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It can be difficult to predict what kind of flexibility your customers will need, and how and where to reveal it to a customer. The list of variables and unknowns can seem endless. How should this capability behave in different product areas? How will customers interact with this capability?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019ve been working in Intercom&#8217;s Platform group since I joined, shaping horizontal capabilities\u2014like the data layer, or reporting\u2014which empower workflows and insights in the product. Our challenge is that we are designing foundations for the long term; they might be used for different purposes by different customers, but overall, they need to allow for consistent solutions that are easy to understand, adopt, and build on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"how-do-we-overcome-this-challenge\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How do we overcome this challenge?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When working on a platform capability or solving a platform-related problem, we start with a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/applying-systems-thinking-in-product-design\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">system<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. In accordance with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techmagic.co\/blog\/galls-law\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gall\u2019s Law<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, we aim to design a simple, flexible, scalable system that works, that allows for simple use cases and can be scaled up as needed. The system should be <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/intercoms-product-principles-connected-modular-systems\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">modular and connected<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to other parts of the product so that it addresses the core problem, but can also be evolved and built on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>\u201cWhen developing a solution, we think about as many problem spaces as possible to ensure that the solution is scalable and not too narrow\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To do this, we think big but start small. When developing a solution, we think about as many problem spaces as possible to ensure that the solution is scalable and not too narrow. This makes it easier to scope down to the most important and impactful parts, or as we call it, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/start-with-a-cupcake\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">our cupcake<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Starting with a cupcake helps us deliver customer value faster and get feedback quicker. We learn, and based on these learnings we decide how and where to evolve our solution and make it more flexible and powerful \u2013 and how to reveal this flexibility to customers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"principle-in-practice\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Principle in practice<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our \u201copinionated by default, flexible under the hood\u201d principle played a major role in our improvements to Intercom\u2019s data model.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Intercom\u2019s data model represents the way that data is organized and structured within the product. It specifies the different types of data that Intercom can store and manage, as well as the relationships between that data.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>\u201cOur data model is built around the concept of <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018<\/span>conversations,<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019<\/span> which are the primary way that businesses communicate with their customers using the Intercom product\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our data model is built around the concept of \u201cconversations,\u201d which are the primary way that businesses communicate with their customers using the Intercom product. Conversations can take many different forms, including live chats, in-app messages, and emails. As well as storing data about individual conversations, the Intercom data model also includes customer data (users and companies they belong to).<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"introducing-more-flexibility-and-control\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Introducing more flexibility and control<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We used to have a pretty inflexible and opinionated data model, which included only a limited number of data types I listed above: data about conversations, and customer data about individual users and companies they belong to.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We learned that this opinionated approach wasn\u2019t enough for our customers. So, we introduced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/help\/en\/collections\/3510275-custom-actions-and-objects\">Custom Objects<\/a> to offer our customers more flexibility and control by allowing them to import and model their data in a way that makes sense for their business. For example, on top of the default conversation and customer data, an e-commerce customer is now able to add \u201corder data\u201d to their data model in Intercom and then use it however they choose.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>\u201cStarting with only one use case allowed us to learn and iterate, how to evolve the system and the solution\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it comes to Custom Objects, every customer has different needs, so we dealt with many variables and unknowns. We first developed the system and infrastructure of this new data model: where custom objects would sit within the model, how they would connect to other data types, and how the new model would enable the usage of data in different product areas like Inbox, bots, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We started small and introduced Custom Objects to our bots, where we saw a great opportunity to significantly increase the self-serve rate and boost customer satisfaction. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Starting with only one use case allowed us to learn and iterate, how to evolve the system and the solution, and where to introduce Custom Objects next.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/fast.wistia.com\/embed\/medias\/q560ihgtr0.jsonp\" async><\/script><script src=\"https:\/\/fast.wistia.com\/assets\/external\/E-v1.js\" async><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"wistia_responsive_padding\" style=\"padding: 100.0% 0 0 0; position: relative;\">\n<div class=\"wistia_responsive_wrapper\" style=\"height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; top: 0; width: 100%;\">\n<div class=\"wistia_embed wistia_async_q560ihgtr0 videoFoam=true\" style=\"height: 100%; position: relative; width: 100%;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We realized that our initial system was too flexible; customers had difficulties understanding and adopting it, and we needed to introduce some opinionated behaviors and defaults. It helped us to correct the system and allow both simple default behaviors and any necessary flexibility in each product part.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I believe that keeping this principle in mind will be even more important for us in the future. Our product is constantly growing and evolving, becoming more complex and sophisticated. Despite this organic complexity, we believe it shouldn\u2019t be complicated for those who are using it \u2013 it should be easy and quick to adopt, and flexible and powerful when they need it to be. To achieve this, we need to keep this principle in mind when designing foundations throughout the whole product experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-cta-quote\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/tag\/product-principles-series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Explore other posts in our series discussing Intercom&#8217;s product principles.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Designing a product is a balancing act.\u00a0At Intercom, we balance strong opinions about the future of customer support with our goal of meeting a huge variety of customer needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":550,"featured_media":27790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"category":[5],"tags":[153,17828,24998],"coauthors":[25130],"class_list":["post-28473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-product-and-design","tag-product-design","tag-product-principles","tag-product-principles-series"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Product Principles: Building Product That&#039;s Opinionated But Flexible<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"At Intercom, we balance strong opinions about the future of customer support with our goal of meeting a huge variety of customer needs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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