The product economy is bustling at the moment, proof of the pudding being in the host of product companies that have raised funding at high valuations over the last few months, and the investors themselves raising funds for further investments this year.

This means competition is ripe and each product is trying to out-do its competitors. When the intention is to out-do the competition, the once-preferred route of building more features is giving way to reducing the number of features which in turn make the product very focused, simple to use and efficient.

Only it is not simple to make a product simple to use when the target audience is varied, as it involves making it simple to use for each member of that audience. WhatsApp is perhaps the poster-boy for achieving that.

Performing the desired (advertised) functionality with minimal fuss is only one part of building a simple to use product. The other is in ensuring no user can use it 'wrongly'. You can never tell the user 'But that's not how you're supposed to do it!' In other words, the user is always right.

I have had this experience recently where some of my product's users have interacted with the product in unexpected ways - and have run into problems. Which is when I realised my product still needs a manual - or a do's and don'ts. And that is the first sign of an un-remarkable product.

Time to fix it and push it in the direction of remarkable.