You ever watch a great chef in the middle of service? I mean, really watch them? Not just chopping, stirring, barking orders—but reading the room. They step out of the kitchen, scan the dining floor, take in the details that most people miss. Who’s scraping their plate clean? Who’s pushing food around? Who’s reaching for the salt?
Because here’s the brutal truth: People will never tell you exactly what they want. But they will always show you.
Chefs who ignore this end up cooking for themselves, making dishes that nobody actually orders. Designers who ignore this? They end up building products that look great in Figma but die the moment they meet real users.
Whether you’re plating a dish or shipping a feature, you’re not doing it for yourself. If you’re not paying attention to how people actually interact with what you’ve made, you might as well be cooking in an empty restaurant.
Lesson One: What People Say vs. What People Do
Customers lie. Not because they’re malicious—just because they don’t actually know what they want.
Ask a restaurant guest if they’d like healthier options, and they’ll nod enthusiastically. Ask a focus group if they’d pay extra for an AI-driven productivity tool, and they’ll say, “Sure, that sounds interesting.”
Then watch what happens.
They order the fried chicken.
They stick to the free version of your app.
The best chefs don’t just ask—they observe. They look at what’s coming back to the kitchen barely touched. They watch what people order again and again. They listen, not just to words, but to behavior.
A great product designer does the same. Stop relying on surveys. Start watching how people actually use your product.
Are they abandoning the checkout page halfway through?
Are they gravitating toward a feature you didn’t expect?
Are they skipping an “essential” onboarding step?
This is real feedback. Everything else is just talk.
Lesson Two: The Silent Signals of Satisfaction (or Frustration)
Ever seen someone take a bite of food and just… pause? That moment where their eyes light up, where they sit back, where they instinctively mmmmm without thinking?
That’s how you know you’ve nailed it.
But the opposite is just as obvious—the barely touched plate, the awkward push of the food around with a fork, the quiet request for the check.
Your product has those silent signals, too. You just need to be looking for them.
Time spent on a feature → Are people actually engaging, or is it a ghost town?
Abandonment rates → Where do users drop off? What’s stopping them from finishing the journey?
Organic behavior → Are people using your product in ways you didn’t expect? (Hint: This is where the real gold is.)
Good chefs adjust based on what they see. They tweak portion sizes, refine seasoning, swap out a sauce. Smart designers do the same. They track user flow, iterate on UI, eliminate friction points—not because users told them to, but because they watched them struggle.
Lesson Three: If You’re Not Talking to Your Customers, You’re Cooking Blind
A chef who never leaves the kitchen has no idea what’s happening in the dining room. They have no clue if people are actually enjoying the food or just being polite.
And yet, so many product teams lock themselves in their offices, building in a vacuum, making assumptions about their users instead of actually talking to them.
Here’s the fix:
Sit at the table. In a restaurant, this means chefs stepping out and chatting with diners. In product design, this means actually talking to your users. Not just reading analytics. Not just sending out NPS surveys. Real conversations.
Do a “staged drop.” Ever seen a restaurant introduce a new menu item quietly, without making a big deal about it? They don’t blast out marketing—they just add it, watch how people respond, and iterate. Product teams should do the same. Roll out new features to a small group first. Get real feedback before making it official.
Look beyond the obvious data. A dish selling well doesn’t always mean it’s great—it might just be the safest option. A feature with lots of clicks doesn’t mean it’s successful—maybe people are just trying (and failing) to make it work. Context matters.
Lesson Four: When to Stick to Your Vision—And When to Change Course
Some of the greatest dishes in history—ramen, BBQ, pizza—weren’t invented in high-end kitchens. They came from what people wanted, what they craved, what they kept coming back for. The best chefs weren’t just innovating for the sake of it. They were responding to demand.
But at the same time, not every new idea needs to be killed just because the masses don’t immediately love it.
Here’s the balance:
When users struggle because of bad design, fix it.(If people can’t figure out how to navigate your app, the problem is your UX, not them.)
When users resist change just because it’s new, hold your ground. (If a major redesign confuses long-time users, don’t immediately roll it back—guide them through the transition.)
When people naturally gravitate toward a feature you didn’t expect, double down.(If users are hacking your product to do something you never intended, you might have stumbled onto your next big thing.)
Because the best chefs? They don’t just cook for themselves. And the best product designers? They don’t just build for the boardroom. They build for the people actually sitting at the table.
Final Thought: Read the Room or Get Left Behind
If you’re not paying attention to your customers, your users, your audience—you’re designing blind.
You can force-feed them what you think they should want or observe, listen, and adjust based on what they actually crave. One of those approaches leads to failure. The other leads to work that people remember.
And in the end, that’s what matters.
Up Next: "The Brigade System and Why Your Product Team Needs One"
Next, we’re diving into why the best kitchens—and the best product teams—aren’t chaotic free-for-alls, but highly structured, disciplined machines.
Because whether you’re running a Michelin-starred kitchen or building world-class products, structure isn’t the enemy of creativity. It’s what makes creativity thrive.
Until then, step out of the kitchen and into the dining room. See what’s happening. Because if you’re not reading the room, you’re already failing.
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