Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Keaton Herzer My cat, Gibbs.

This is my cat, Gibbs. He has many interests like sleeping, snuggling, hunting bugs, and getting inside boxes.

He can also be kindof an asshole.

For example, he loves to walk on my face while I’m sleeping. To avoid this, I’ve gotten in the habit of playing with him before I go to bed so he’s super tired and everyone gets a good night’s rest.

So, like any good cat owner I bought toys. Lots and lots of toys.

First, I bought him a bunch of these little pieces of shit.

He played with them for about 10 minutes and never used them again. Ungrateful jerk.

Then I bought him this crazy S-shaped thing so maybe he could play by himself while I watch Game of Thrones.

I think it was a little to complicated for him… He got bored and gave up in about 12 seconds.

And then I stumbled upon this thing:

The Original Cat Dancer — the Holy Grail of Cat Toys — and Gibbs loves it. That’s not a plug, but if they feel compelled to send a couple bucks my way I wont complain.

How can something so simple solve a problem that a lot of money and other products could not solve? It got me thinking more about the products we humans use and why we use them.

Simple & Engaging

I mean, take another look at that thing. It’s cardboard and wire. Stupid simple. But it’s a great toy for cats. Gibbs could play with this thing for hours and hours.

Also, there is nothing to learn about this toy. No manual. No on or off button. No information overload. Its a consistent experience every, single time. And it’s consistently awesome. It wears him out and that means no walking on my face. That means sleep, precious sleep.

While he is capable of playing with this toy himself, its much more fun when I play with him. It feeds his primal urge to hunt and murder things while also helping to connect him with the most important person in his life(me).

It’s simple, but it works. The folks who made this toy probably started by looking at the way cats play in the wild. They probably watched cute videos on YouTube like the one below and thought, hey those are some silly-ass cats, but they seem to love pouncing on small wiggly objects.

<a href="https://medium.com/media/51ff7cfce9781b19184ece530471f405/href">https://medium.com/media/51ff7cfce9781b19184ece530471f405/href</a>

They started by focusing on what the cats were already doing naturally and used that to inform the product they made.

Other products tried to do too much and the result was that Gibbs got confused and bored and gave up.

People are pretty similar when you think about it. Look at Slack for example:

I love using Slack.

Slack simplifies communication at work. They looked at what people were already doing at work, talking to each other and sharing files and information. They probably said something like — why the f*ck do we need emails and texts and Skype and phone calls and file-sharing apps all this other stuff?

The answer is: we don’t. Its confusing and time-consuming and we end up getting tired and stressed out just trying to keep track of everything that’s going on. No one needs that. Just like my cat doesn’t need a crazy S-shaped thing or a thousand different balls or various textures and materials. It’s just unnecessary.

Ask why

All this started with a single problem. Gibbs walks on my face at night.

If you take that at face value there are a hundred different solutions to this problem. For example, I could solve this problem by locking him out of my bedroom while I’m sleeping, but then he’d meow in the hallway until I cave and let him in. Looking at problems on the surface doesn’t give you the context needed to effectively solve the problem. You need to ask why.

He says “Hi, Medium.”

Why does Gibbs walk on my face? Well, because he’s bored. He sleeps most of the day while I’m at work so when I get home, he’s ready to go. Since I live in a big city (in a small apartment), he doesn’t really get the opportunity to do what nature intended for him to do — hunt and kill things. This toy gives him the opportunity to hunt and kill things without actually hunting and killing things.

Now he doesn’t walk on my face and I can sleep. Lots of problems solved by this simple little piece of cardboard and wire. All because they took the time to understand what would motivates my cat and how he really wants to play, then creating a product that solves a real problem for us.

One more thing. I realize some of you are reading this going, “Hey, your cat didn’t actually teach you any of these things,” and you people get the Most Astute Reader award. Congratulations. Trophy’s in the mail.

What My Cat Taught Me About Product Design was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What My Cat Taught Me About Product Design

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