> If Carousel is intended to solve a user problem, neither I nor other potential users seem to be able to figure out what it is.
> users don’t seem to be keen on replacing the main Facebook app
> a sufficiently vague target is harder to miss
The common thread between these products is that they are solutions in search of problems. Great design can't help you find the "problem" to solve faster than any other technique. This is a product/market fit article that just happens to focus on design driven products.
I think that's the entire point of the article. The premise is that designers have been given a seat at the table because of the perception that they have some advanced insight into producing products with market fit and betting on them is more likely to produce a successful product. The author uses these three apps, a sample of design driven products, to show that lauded designers have no better insight than anybody else. Maybe they're only better at making things shiny, not creating valuable products.
Designers are good at refining existing products for mass consumption, it's engineers that come up with new, innovative products that solve real problems. Expecting designers to be good engineers is insulting to both professions.
Obviously bucketing one or the other is foolish. The people who come up with innovative products are usually called inventors, and they can come from a background of engineering, design, or anything really.
> users don’t seem to be keen on replacing the main Facebook app
> a sufficiently vague target is harder to miss
The common thread between these products is that they are solutions in search of problems. Great design can't help you find the "problem" to solve faster than any other technique. This is a product/market fit article that just happens to focus on design driven products.