I keep noticing small things in products that feel slightly off to me. These are my attempts at making those things a little more human. This is a collection of small product provocations, observations and ideas I've had over the years. Some are half-baked. Some might actually be useful. I'm not entirely sure which is which.
Some are probably terrible ideas (for businesses), but might still be good ideas (for consumers).
That's why they're here.
LinkedIn should let employees rate & review companies.
Candidates should have transparency about companies.
The product question is:
Why can companies investigate candidates, but candidates can't get equivalent transparency about companies?
Companies run background checks on candidates.
Why shouldn't candidates be able to investigate the company with the same depth?
Imagine a transparent company profile showing:
Employee experience
Leadership changes
Layoffs
Average tenure
Employee reviews
Not another Glassdoor clone. Something closer to a reputation layer for employment.
LinkedIn: honest about employers.
Your quick-commerce app should tell you what you're actually eating.
Customers should understand the consequences of their purchasing behaviour.
The product question is:
Why does the product tell me what I bought but not help me understand what my behaviour means?
You know exactly how many orders you made.
But what if the app said:
You ordered 47 packets of chips this year.
Or:
68% of your grocery spend went towards packaged food.
Or:
You bought enough tomatoes to make 31 salads.
Not because the app wants to gamify your behaviour.
Because you deserve to know what your behaviour looks like.
Food apps: honest about your consumption.
An app that wants you to close it.
A product doesn't always need to maximise engagement.
The product question is:
What if a product encouraged me to do something meaningful offline instead of trying to keep me inside the product?
Write a letter to someone.
Clean your desk.
Go cycling.
Call a friend.
Volunteer.
Donate.
Do something useful that doesn't require a screen.
The product's success metric isn't:
Daily Active Users.
It's:
Days you didn't need us.
Good-deeds app: honest about engagement.
Platforms should match customer tips to delivery partners.
Platforms should share responsibility rather than shifting it to users.
If I tip ₹20, you tip ₹20.
Quick-commerce and food-delivery apps increasingly ask customers to tip the delivery partner.
The product question is:
Why is the customer being asked to carry the entire burden of compensating the delivery partner?
You've already paid the platform, delivery fee, restaurant/handling/packaging charges, etc. Then the interface presents tipping as another moral decision at checkout. The platform can say, “100% of your tip goes to the partner,” but your point is: if the delivery partner's work is essential to the service, why isn't the platform sharing that responsibility?
Fair enough. But if the platform says 100% of that tip goes to the person delivering my order, why should the contribution sit entirely with me?
What if the platform matched every tip?
I tip ₹20.
The platform adds ₹20.
Now the message isn't “Would you like to pay your delivery partner a little extra?”
It's “We'll contribute alongside you.”
The customer isn't the only one being asked to value the work.
Zomato: honest about who should bear the cost.