You can pretty easily over complicate product development for yourself. Just begin the creation process from the wrong starting point. Draw a picture of a future product in your mind, stretch and adjust the requirements so they fit it and you’re lost. Try starting with product function not the form.
Product function is what a product must do, what problem does it solve. Product form describes how it is done.
The actions that user performs to achieve his goal describe function. The form consists of elements that help the user to make the progress (screens, forms, buttons, menus).
It is very natural to have an image of the desired product in your head. To make life easier we tend to think in patterns and look for the solutions that we already know. New product concept is a new problem. The first thing our brain does is looking in an array of already known patterns one that would fit.
How many time have you heard about newly formed companies to create ticketmaster for webinars, netflix for games or tinder for pet lovers? It is ok to describe complex things with simple words when talking to the public. Not so much to use it as a line of thinking.
Don’t get me wrong, patterns are useful. They are familiar and don’t require learning new skills. Existence of a successful pattern means that we have collectively figured out a good solution that works.
Shopping cart on a e-commerce website, thematic top menu on media website, horizontal lists of cards in video streaming are easy examples. If tomorrow we would need to switch from one online store to the other we will be ok because they all work the same.
But i’ll argue that patterns are harmful when figuring out the main product job. Product X looks like it is because it helps achieve its function. If our function differs ever so slightly then the form also changes.
Better skip the desire to look for solutions altogether in a time when the project is starting out and the main focus is on the product job, what it needs to do and to whom it will be valuable.