Elegance is a Product Decision

Elegance is too often treated as optional in product management—something nice to have if there’s time or budget. But for products that live in customers' daily lives, elegance isn’t a luxury. It’s part of the why that draws people in and keeps them loyal.

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Earlier this year, Google discontinued the Nest Protect.

For those unfamiliar, Nest Protect was a smart smoke and CO2 detector. But that undersells it. It wasn’t just functional—it was elegant. Clean design, subtle lighting, smart voice alerts instead of ear-splitting beeps. It was beautiful, like an Apple product. It didn’t just work well; it looked like it belonged in a well-designed home.

Google, in its infinite scale-driven wisdom, recommended customers switch to a similar product from First Alert. That product? Ugly. Functional, yes. But the design is straight from a 1998 hardware store aisle. Bland plastic. Weird corners. A visual wart on your ceiling.

This isn’t just an aesthetic complaint. It’s a product complaint.

Because the thing lives on my wall. I see it every day. I’m inviting it into my home. Why can’t it be beautiful?

This isn’t just about smoke detectors. It’s about what happens when beautiful products get absorbed by big companies. When elegance loses to efficiency. When the why that inspired the original product gets replaced by someone else's roadmap.

Nest’s why was clear: Function doesn’t have to mean ugly.

Google’s why is different: Integrate everything into our platform and optimize for cost and reach.

That’s not inherently evil. That’s what big companies do. But when you acquire something beloved and then slowly sand off all the edges that made people fall in love with it, customers notice. They don’t always scream about it. They just quietly stop trusting you.

“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” Buckminster Fuller

Let’s sit with that for a moment. Beauty, or elegance, is not a superficial afterthought. It’s a signal that the team cared deeply enough to make the solution feel right. It means the product was finished—not just functional.

And that’s where product management comes in.

Because elegance isn’t just UX’s job. Elegance is a product decision.

Product managers are the ones who define what “done” means. They’re the ones who prioritize the work, push back on compromises, and advocate for the customer’s whole experience—not just the functional checklist.

If a product manager defines the MVP as “just working,” elegance won’t make it in. But if the product manager defines success as “a solution that feels right to the customer,” suddenly elegance is part of the scope.

Too often, elegance gets treated like optional frosting. “Let’s nail the core functionality first. We’ll make it beautiful later.” Spoiler: later rarely comes. Budgets shrink. Timelines collapse. Teams move on. And customers get stuck with something that works—technically—but feels like it was made by people who don’t care.

Worse still, some product managers will argue that customers don’t care about design, that beauty is subjective, and that “it’s just a smoke detector; who cares what it looks like?”

But here’s the thing: Some customers care a lot.

And those customers are often your early adopters, your loyalists, your unpaid marketing department. They’re the ones who tell their friends, who proudly post their setups, who evangelize your product because it’s not just useful—it’s lovable.

Disappoint them, and you don’t just lose a sale. You lose trust. You lose future word of mouth. You lose the feeling that your brand is made by people who “get it.”

I was one of those customers. I bought Nest Protect not just because it detected smoke and CO2 but because it did so with care and polish. It didn’t just protect my house; it respected my house. That mattered to me—and still does.

So when Google tells me, “Here’s this other detector. Same basic function. Trust us,” I don’t. Because they’ve already told me, in actions not words, that my why doesn’t matter to them.

And this is a lesson for product managers—especially those working on post-acquisition products or products being “rationalized” into a larger ecosystem.

Elegance is not frivolous. It is not extra. It is a competitive advantage.

When elegance disappears, customers feel it. Even if they can’t name it. Even if they don’t articulate it in surveys. They sense it when they go from “This makes me smile every time I use it” to “This just… exists.”

Sure, elegance takes effort. It might cost more. It might slow you down. But it pays off in loyalty, love, and long-term differentiation.

If you want to make great products, stop treating elegance as a bonus. Treat it like a requirement.

If your roadmap has no space for beauty, you’re probably building something that works—but won’t last.

So yes, a smoke detector can be elegant. A thermostat can be elegant. An onboarding flow can be elegant. A dashboard can be elegant. And the people responsible for making that happen?

Not just designers. Product managers.

Because elegance is a product decision. And it’s one you make—or avoid—every single day.