The Christopher Alexander framing (form/context/fitness) cuts through alot of the fluff around product intuition. Most discussions about taste devolve into mysticism, but breaking it into coherence rather than subjective good/bad makes it something you can actually work with. The mojito bartender example lands perfectly - those micro-decisions about mint arrangement aren't arbitrary aesthetics, they're functional design hiding in plain sight.
What gets less attention is how taste becomes a liability when your context shifts. I've seen engineers with excellent taste for B2B enterprise products struggle when building consumer tools becuase they keep optimizing for the wrong user empathy. The domain knowledge transfers but the empathy layer needs complete recalibration. That Spotify shuffle example is instructive - technically random was 'correct' but psychologically wrong.Good taste meant breaking the rules.
The Christopher Alexander framing (form/context/fitness) cuts through alot of the fluff around product intuition. Most discussions about taste devolve into mysticism, but breaking it into coherence rather than subjective good/bad makes it something you can actually work with. The mojito bartender example lands perfectly - those micro-decisions about mint arrangement aren't arbitrary aesthetics, they're functional design hiding in plain sight.
What gets less attention is how taste becomes a liability when your context shifts. I've seen engineers with excellent taste for B2B enterprise products struggle when building consumer tools becuase they keep optimizing for the wrong user empathy. The domain knowledge transfers but the empathy layer needs complete recalibration. That Spotify shuffle example is instructive - technically random was 'correct' but psychologically wrong.Good taste meant breaking the rules.
Very true about different types of products. B2B and B2C are totally different games.